WVU Wrestling Coach Tim Flynn Wants to Win Now, ‘We’re Tired of Losing’

West Virginia wrestling coach Tim Flynn started this 2021 season with a very simple message to his team, ‘I want to win now’.

“My message is, I don’t want to wait to win,” Flynn said sternly, but with a chuckle when speaking to the media earlier this week. “I try to tell our guys it’s just you, you’re out against one guy and then I’m out against one guy. I just keep trying to tell them they can win as freshmen…You’re allowed to win as freshmen. I see it happen every year. We have a pretty good feel for where we are. But I think they can win right away. We do trust the climb but I want to climb right now. We’re tired of losing.”

Flynn went on to express that if a guy like Iowa’s Spencer Lee can go out and win a national title he see’s no reason why any one of his 20 true or redshirt-freshmen can’t accomplish the same this season.

It seems that true freshman and Chester WV native, Peyton Hall, was the first Mountaineer rookie to heed the advice of his third-year head coach. The 165-pounder was outstanding in his first taste of collegiate action last weekend at the WVU Quad.

Hall used his first collegiate meet to put the wrestling world (and the various wrestling rankings outlets) on notice. The freshman recorded a 3-0 record on the day, including two major decisions, one of which was a 9-0 decision over a then Flo-No. 22-ranked Colt Yinger. In three matches, Hall outscored opponents by a combined 31-7 margin.

Hall is coming off a prep career that saw the Flo’s 29th-ranked high school recruit in the class of 2020 win four West Virginia state titles. His performance in his college debut has him ranked 24th by Flo and Trackwrestling, while The Open Mat has him at No. 30. InterMat doesn’t have him ranked yet but referenced him in one of its latest articles about freshman wrestlers who are already making an early impact on their respective squads.

While some in the wrestling community might be learning of the future WVU star, his head coach isn’t at all surprised by what Hall has already achieved in just a day in the Old Gold and Blue.

“What we see in practice is a talented guy,” Flynn said of the 165-pounder. “He has a great feel for wrestling, so he can do some things that we just can’t teach him. He floats well (and) he just feels it far better than I ever did (as a wrestler myself).”

Flynn continued to praise Hall for the intensity that the first-year wrestler brings to the practice room each and every day – always butting heads with guys in a good way. Flynn said he believes his wrestler will be a challenge for his opponents right away this season. This weekend, Hall will be tested on the mat once again, facing a pair of ranked wrestlers.

“You know, he didn’t get a chance to wrestle you know, Mekhi Lewis from [Virginia Tech], he’s gonna have his hands full this weekend,” Flynn said. “The Oklahoma kid [Jake Stiles] is a good young kid. I think he’s ranked 30th or something and, and then the Hartman kid from Bucknell is a top-10 guy. But, we see it every day [from Hall]. He competes every day, and he has such a great attitude and a great feel for wrestling.”

Hall’s first opponent Sunday, Bucknell’s Zach Hartman (2-0), is 9th (InterMat and FloWrestling, 11th The Open Mat) in the latest polls. His Oklahoma opponent, Stiles sits at No. 27, according to Trackwrestling.

But as everyone knows, wrestling is very much a team sport, no matter how well Hall performs, he cannot win the duals himself. To that end, Hall will have to rely on not only his veteran ranked teammates – No. 17 Killian Cardinale and Flo’s 18th-best pound-for-pound wrestler in the country, No. 1 Noah Adams – but also fellow freshman teammate and top-50 recruit Brayden Roberts at 149.

For Cardinale, he will be looking to rebound after a tough two-loss showing at the WVU quad. Both losses, where Cardinale wrestled well, were narrow one-point losses. Flynn expects his 2020NWCA Division I All-America Honorable Mention honoree to be just fine this weekend.

“[Cardinale] didn’t wrestle bad at all,” Flynn said. “The Virginia Tech kid’s very good, [Cardinale] was very close to a takedown at the end of the match, to win it. That kid [redshirt freshman Sam Lotona], is a top-10 ranked kid in some polls. I think Cardinale just has to do more, he has to attack more and be a little bit more aggressive during the match.”

As for the nation’s top wrestler at 197, he will just have to continue his dominant style of wrestling. Adams, who was crowned a Big 12 champion a year ago, completing the 2019-20 campaign with a perfect 32-0 overall record, including an unblemished 13-0 mark against conference opponents, is currently riding a 35-match winning streak that dates back to Nov. 3, 2019. While ranked wrestler Caleb Rea won’t appear in the starting lineup Sunday, he will log some exhibition matches as he progresses toward returning to the starting lineup after the 141-pounder had a long layoff.

“Caleb was out for a while,” Flynn said. “He’s been working out the last three weeks or so. He hasn’t wrestled off, he’s gonna get some exhibition matches this weekend, and then wrestle off the following weekend. He looks pretty good in practice.”

With the absence of not only a ranked wrestler but also one the WVU’s most seasoned grapplers in Rea, they will turn to younger guys – including Parkersburg South’s Braydon Roberts at 149 pounds.

Roberts, alongside Hall was a focal point in the Mountaineers’ 2019 recruiting class, which ranked 12th in the country by Flo Wrestling and 16th by Open Mat. Roberts put forth an impressive 2-1 showing in his own college debut last week, which included a strong 4-0 shutout win in just his second career match.

Whether it’s the veteran, ranked, WVU stars, or any one of the nearly two dozen up-and-coming freshman, the Mountaineers will need a complete team effort to upset No. 19 Oklahoma in WVU’s first conference meet of the season. It’s no secret that WVU has struggled mightily since before the Flynn era began in Morgantown.  West Virginia has not had a winning dual season since 2014, which was two head coaches ago when Craig Turnbull was still running the program.

Flynn arrived in 2019 after a highly successful run at Edinboro that saw his teams regularly place in the top 20 at NCAAs with a number of national title contenders. The rebuilding job he stepped into here at West Virginia was far greater than he initially anticipated from the perspective of an outsider.

“I was at one place for so long and people talk about culture … the kids know what is expected of them, they know your system, they’re going to class and doing the right things off the mat,” Flynn said last year. “I probably underestimated how hard it would be to kind of get a winning culture in place, and I think we have it now.”

Today, the rebuilding process is in full swing with zero seniors and more 20 freshmen or redshirt freshmen on the roster.  Still, the expectation is the same as it’s always been under Flynn.

“I’m a competitor, and I want to win,” Flynn explained. “As much as I want to produce great young men and have people graduate and get jobs, I came to West Virginia because I want to win, and I want to win at a high level so it was really hard.”

And to win, Flynn will do whatever it takes -– even if that means tinkering with his lineup.

“Everybody’s available to us because there’s no redshirt,” Flynn said regarding if the starting lineup is settled at this stage of the season.  “It’s a free [year], everybody’s redshirting, so everyone’s available. There’s still some things that can happen with our lineup. Some weights are just unsettled, we’ve just encouraged them all to keep competing and get yourself into that starting lineup.”

The Mountaineers will be back in action Sunday for another home dual at WVU Coliseum. The tri-meet will include matches with Bucknell (2 p.m.) and Big 12 foe No. 19 Oklahoma (5 p.m.). The event can be seen via Big XII Now on ESPN+.