"Well Dick, here's the deal. I'm the best there is, plain and simple. I mean, I wake up in the morning and I piss excellence. And nobody can hang with my stuff.......I'm just a big hairy American winning machine. If you ain't first, you're last."

Ricky Bobby

Remember the Penn State offense in 1994? The stats made me laugh out loud - Carter averaging 8 yards a carry; Collins averaging 9 yards per pass attempt (or whatever the stats were - too hard to find; but how about a few claps for that O-line, huh?). We're witnessing the same unholy numbers from sophomore wrestlers Ed Ruth and David Taylor.

I mentioned that they're both sophomores this season?

Let’s take a look at some of the stats:

Ruth is 27 – 0 heading into the national tournament, and Taylor is 29 – 0.

Ruth has 8 falls (pins) and Taylor 10. Remember the drive our offense had against Iowa this year, where they ran the football 12 straight plays, and then threw a 2-yard play action pass to Haplea for the TD? And then our D sacked Vandenberg 40 times in a row to end the game? Doing that consistently on both sides of the ball throughout the entire game is similar to a pin. You take the other guy’s manhood, hold it up for the crowd to mock, and then toss it in a garbage can.

In a Tech Fall, the referee stops the match because you’re killing the other kid (figuratively, BoT members. Actually, you have a 15-point lead). College football doesn’t have a similar rule. But if it did, you’d have seen it occur when Penn State beat Ohio State in 1994 during homecoming, 63 – 14. PSU had the ball, they scored. OSU had the ball, PSU scored. Same general thing is happening here. Think mercy rule.

A major decision is by 8 points, but less than 15 (tech fall). Make no mistake, you’ve put a whoopin’ on someone. This is like what happened to Michigan during the RichRod era – or, any spread team during the last years of Lloyd Carr.

Fall, Tech Fall or Major – you’ve dominated your opponent. And Ruth and Taylor this season have dominated their opponents north of 80% of the time. And its been from every position, neutral bottom and top. Did I mention that Ruth’s faced nine top-20 ranked wrestlers, and Taylor’s faced 10? Or that of Ruth’s four regular decisions, two have come against his teammate Matt Brown? There are only a handful of individual seasons I could find that come close to what these two guys are putting up (thanks to wrestlingstats.com):

>SR Kerry McCoy went 47 - 0 in 1997, winning a second national championship, with 27 bonus point wins (falls + tech falls + majors);

>SR Jeff Prescott was 30 - 1 in 1993, winning a national championship, with 19 bonus point wins;

>JR Jim Martin was 41 - 1 in 1988, winning a national championship, with 26 bonus point wins.

A national championship for both Ruth and Taylor would put them at the top of this list, in my opinion, because of the rate at which they've dominated opponents.

If you get a chance, check these guys and their teammates out in the NCAA wrestling tournament this week. Your broadcast times are as follows:

>Thursday, March 15th beginning at Noon on ESPN3 (website)

>Friday, at 11amET (quarterfinals) and 7pm (semifinals) on ESPNU (tv)

>Saturday at 11amET (medal rounds, 3rd thru 8th places) on ESPNU

>Saturday at 7:30pmET (championship finals) on regular ESPN