Iowa and Oklahoma State Will Wrestle in a Football Stadium

“Why am I seeing a photo of Iowa’s football stadium on my Oklahoma State blog?” you might be asking. I have answers.

For the first time in history, two D-1 wrestling programs will wrestle outdoors in a D-1 football stadium. The dual will take place on November 14 and will be an attempt to break the record for most fans in attendance at a college wrestling match.

The record right now is 15,996. Kinnick Stadium, which will host Iowa-Minnesota in football later in the day[1. And definitely feature fewer fireworks than the wrestling dual.] on November 14, holds 70,585.

“Oklahoma State and Iowa is a historical match. It’s got a lot of excitement to it,” said John Smith. “We usually wrestle it in January, and Coach (Tom) Brands called and said he wanted to change the date and put it on the football field. I said, ‘Let’s do it.’ It’s a rarity to open up our season with one of the better teams in the country. I think it’s something that will be fun.”

From this description, I imagine most of Smith’s phone calls don’t take longer than a minute, but that’s neither here nor there. What’s important is that two of the greatest wrestling programs ever are going to wrestle in a football stadium.