‘As Soon as They Want to Wrestle, We’ll Do It’: David Taylor Calls Out Penn State

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STILLWATER — David Taylor is not ducking his alma mater, in fact he’s far from it.

Taylor held a rare August media availability on Tuesday, where he was asked about scheduling and particularly what it would take to get Penn State — a program that has won the past five NCAA titles — on the schedule.

“Hey, I’ll tell you what, when it comes to Penn State, I’m saving one date on my schedule every single year for when they wanna wrestle,” Taylor said. “So, as soon as they say they want to wrestle, we’ll do it. We’ll go there. If they ever wanna come back here, we don’t really care. We just wanna wrestle the best teams, and we want to challenge ourselves.

“I think the sport would really benefit from those two programs wrestling with the history and excitement of it. And if it doesn’t happen, well then the national tournament will be really exciting. But, yeah we’ll save one date every year. So, whenever they want to do it, we’ll do it.”

David Taylor dropped a bomb at his summer media availability.

He’s saving a date for Penn State.

“When it comes to Penn State, I’m saving one date on my schedule every single year for whenever they wanna wrestle. So, as soon as they say they want to wrestle, we’ll do it.” pic.twitter.com/VymGXzj8nj

— Marshall Scott (@MarshallScottOK) August 11, 2026

It’s hard to make much of an argument against Penn State and Oklahoma State being the top two programs in the sport right now.

Penn State’s recent dominance at the NCAA Championships speaks for itself, and since Taylor’s arrival in Stillwater, the already historic Cowboys have been going nowhere but up. OSU took second at NCAAs this past season, doing so while crowning three true freshmen national champs.

OSU and Penn State last shared a dual in 2017 in front of 14,059 fans inside Gallagher-Iba Arena. Penn State won that dual 27-13. It was part of a four-year stretch where the two programs wrestled each other with Penn State winning three of those duals.

That stretch started during Taylor’s senior year at PSU in 2014, a dual Penn State won 23-12 in Rec Hall in State College. Funnily enough, Taylor earned a 5-2 decision win against Tyler Caldwell that day. Caldwell is now on OSU’s staff in Stillwater.

Taylor, in a lot of ways, helped lay the building blocks for the Penn State program alongside coach Cael Sanderson. Taylor went 134-3 in college, winning two NCAA titles and finishing his career with an 88.3% bonus rate. Penn State won NCAA team titles in each of Taylor’s years competing.

OSU is Taylor’s first head coaching gig, as he left Pennsylvania to take it. Since taking over, Taylor has produced five individual national champs in two seasons.

OSU’s nonconference schedule is set to be released on Wednesday, and by the way Taylor answered that question, it doesn’t look as if the Nittany Lions are on it. But the gauntlet has been put down. The Cowboys are willing to wrestle the top dogs.

“The schedule, that’s been one of those things where there’s so much more to scheduling that what you would think,” Taylor said. “It’s a lot of back and forth and — I don’t know — politics, probably, into it, which I don’t like that much about it.”