Tiger Style Explored: A Mizzou Wrestling Interview Series - Brian Smith (Part Two)

Welcome back to Tiger Style Explored, a weekly Mizzou Wrestling interview series taking you inside the program in the coming months from the regular season to the NCAA Championships and beyond.

Here’s who I have talked with thus far.

125lbs starter, Noah Surtin | 141lbs starter, Josh Edmond | 157lbs starter, Brock Mauller | 174lbs starter, Peyton Mocco | 184lbs starter, Colton Hawks | 197lbs starter, Rocky Elam | 285lbs starter, Zach Elam

Assistant coach Kendric Maple | Assistant coach Tyrel Todd | Assistant coach Dom Bradley

The final part of this interview series is going to be a little bit different than what you’ve seen before. We’ve split up my interview with Coach Smith into three parts, as there is A LOT to talk about.

In part one, we talked about this past season and the NCAA Championships. We’re talking the future of the program here in part two.

Obviously it’s tough anytime you have to replace three All-Americans. How do you replace wrestlers who had so much success like that, who’s next up?

BS: Yeah, we have some guys in the room right now, especially at heavyweight. Seth Nitzel was placing at all these tournaments all the time, he’s in his fourth or fifth year and he knows he’s getting the opportunity. [He] blew his knee out at the [Southern] Scuffle last year in the placing round or whatever against a nationally ranked kid, but was in the match and maybe winning, and has now gotten back. [He] placed at the Soldier Salute and did a good job, and he’s ready to take that on.

There’s a couple of younger guys in the room, too, at heavyweight. But for [replacing] Mocco, we’re gonna see [if] Keegan [O’Toole]’s gonna move up to [174]. That’s one of the things that’s been talked about. You have Cam Steed in the room that didn’t get to start this year but was at [157] and, you know, had that one point battle with Brock [Mauller]. And so we have some bodies that are ready to step in and become the guys, so we’ll see. At [157] we also have [James] Conway that got some opportunities at the end of the year to wrestle, and then we’ll have some recruits coming in too. So we’ll see.

You’ve mentioned people already in the room and incoming recruits, but you have also gone into the transfer portal before. Is that something you’re considering this offseason?

BS: You have to. When I looked at Michigan, they had a couple of guys in the finals that were transfers. Oklahoma State had a couple All-Americans that were transfers. Iowa had a bunch of All-Americans that were transfers. When you look at Penn State, their heavyweight came from Ohio State, their [165] pounder was a transfer, their [133] pounder was a transfer. I would rather have kids come in as a freshman, [work on] development, but that’s the old way of doing it. If you’re not looking at the portal and seeing, ‘Wow, this guy would upgrade our room, let’s do it’ ... so we will look at the portal and see who’s in there, and take a shot at trying to get some of them.

You mentioned the possibility of Keegan O’Toole bumping up to 174lbs. What conversations have you had with him about that, and where are you currently in that process?

BS: Keegan had mentioned [it] last summer or something. We’re not having that conversation as the season’s in-season, I’ll have that conversation with him when I see him next time. He’s probably on break right now. And so we’ll have that sitdown and figure it out. Then we’ll figure out who’s going [165] and who’s going [157] and all those things. But I want to get that done early, because then we know what we have and what we need. But we’ll see, that’ll be in the next week or so.

This is going to be a really busy offseason for O’Toole with the Olympic Trials. Do you think he can become the next Mizzou wrestler to make the Olympics, following in the footsteps of Ben Askren and J’den Cox?

BS: Yes, without a doubt. I mean, he’s won the U20’s, he’s won the U23’s, he’s qualified for the Olympic Trials. He’s letting his body recover, he had a couple bumps and sprains and things, so he’s got to get healed up and then get training for the Trials. But he’ll be out there with Coach [Dom] Bradley, and Jarrett Jacques has qualified. So right now those three are getting ready to get their training for the Trials.

O’Toole and a lot of others in the program are from Wisconsin, you wrestled at Michigan State. You mentioned your conversation with Penn State’s Cael Sanderson (to be revealed in part three). Are you hoping to have some more duals with Big Ten teams in the future?

BS: Yeah, we’d love to. It’s just hard getting them on the schedule. We got Illinois last year, I’m hoping we’ll have another event like we did last year. Wherever Illinois wants to host it, it’s their year to host, so I’m waiting to hear from them. They were talking maybe Chicago or something, so we’ll see what happens. I would definitely love to get some others. I’ve always tried to get Iowa because Iowa’s one of the closer schools to us, you know, it’s a little less than four hour drive. So [I’m] always trying.

You know, we had a good rivalry with Nebraska when they were in the conference. Because when they were in the conference, when we first got in, they were the fourth team and we were the fifth team of the five teams, so it was always a battle. And that was our first win in the Big 12. They’re a really, really good team now, but they’re only a five hour drive, I’d love to have them on the schedule.

We’ll keep trying, and hopefully we’ll get a few on there. I know we’ll have Cornell in here next year, who were the runner ups [at the NCAA Championships], so that’ll be a big dual at home. We’ll bring in Iowa State, who was fourth in the country, next year. We’ll have some really, really good home duals next year with the teams we have on the schedule that we went to this year.

I’d love to see a dual in Chicago, that’s actually my hometown.

BS: Hopefully that happens, because we do have a lot of alums [there]. My son lives in Chicago, he hangs out with about five or six guys that wrestled at Mizzou. They all wrestled at Mizzou and they live in Chicago. I know it’s the third largest city percentage-wise that attends Mizzou. So you know this, there’s a lot of Chicago kids. Everything’s Chicago, though, the suburbs go way out there. So kids live in wherever, St. Charles, and they’re like, ‘Yeah, Chicago.’ You know what I’m talking about.

Looking more long-term into the future, you’ve had top-three finishes, won conference titles, had All-Americans and individual national champions. What are the main things left that you want to accomplish?

BS: I think there’s the one thing, the national title. I mean, will I be disappointed in my career if I don’t win it? No, because there’s more to life than just that. But it’s what we’re striving for. I feel like the program’s in a good place. One of my guys that wrestled for me in my first year grabbed me, he’s like, ‘Coach, it’s funny how disappointed everybody is.’ There were 500-something people at the social [held by Mizzou at the championships in Kansas City], which is insane. We had 500 people at a social and the whole Chicken N Pickle restaurant, upstairs, downstairs, the courts, everything was Mizzou Wrestling.

Everybody was upset because we didn’t [place higher], and we didn’t perform the best we could. We could have had more All-Americans and we could have had a team trophy. But they were upset with an 11th place finish, and there’s a lot of teams that, at Mizzou, would kill to be 11th. But that’s not the standard of our program. And that’s the great thing about it, that we’ve got to do better and we’re striving for that. The national title is what I want to get. And everybody in this program, that’s our focus.

What would winning a national title mean to the program and to you individually?

BS: It would mean we had a really good weekend. You know, you have to put everything together, and it’s a tough tournament to do that at. But we’ve done it before, we took third with three All-Americans one time, and this year we took 11th with three All-Americans. I saw Cornell [finish] 2nd with three All-Americans. You got to put it together. Next year [when] I look at it, we can have seven or eight, maybe nine All-Americans. And [if] you do that, you’re gonna be up there and give yourself a chance. And it’s getting everybody to perform at the optimal level on that weekend, that third weekend usually in March, and that’s my job as a coach to make that happen.

And the athletes got to believe in that and compete at that level, and make it happen. Sometimes it’s just you go out there and you give everything you have, and I’ve seen it. I saw it this past weekend with Keegan, and he lost a heartbreaker. He gave everything he had, he left it on the mat. He splits with a national champ in the national title two years, and sometimes in the sport of wrestling, it’s a 50/50 thing when you’re going out there. We’ve been fortunate to win a lot of those but this year he didn’t. But putting it all together and winning a national title would be special, because it hasn’t been done.

A national title hasn’t been won at Mizzou ever in our sport, but since like the 1960’s in any sport, so that’s a goal for everybody here. And I feel like once a sport does it, it’s going to make that breakthrough. I saw that with an individual national champion in wrestling at Mizzou. Once Ben [Askren] broke through that door, it’s like a couple of years later, Mark Ellis is doing it and then a year later, Max [Askren] is doing it. And now it’s like guys believe they can win it all the time. [It’s] the same thing with a team, one of these teams has to break through and do it. And I would love to be the leader of that team that does it.

You’ve been at Mizzou for 26 years now. Do you see yourself coaching into the forseeable future, and what are your plans for life after coaching?

BS: Definitely I see myself in the future coaching, yes. The morning I wake up and I’m like, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore,’ that’s when I’m stepping away. I’d love to move into an administrative role, because I feel like I could bring a lot to the athletic department when I do move on to that next step. I need to be doing things. I don’t fish, I don’t hunt, my assistants make fun of me. I love to read and share knowledge and teach. And I’ve done a lot of leadership things with leadership in coaching. I do a lot here with meeting with all the head coaches and assistant coaches, that I’d love to move into some kind of role with that in the future.

Not [the] near future but eventually, down the road. Because I’d love to stay at Mizzou. I love it here, I walk to work every day. I live right next to campus. I’m kind of strange. I don’t have a car, I walk to work, go to the same church, [have been] married to the same girl for 30 years. I’m kind of boring. But it’s something that, you know, that next stage in life, I’d love to move into the administrative role and be able to do some leadership stuff with the athletic department. I feel like I’d bring a lot to it.

We will dig into the philosophy behind Tiger Style and its beginnings in part three.