‘There’s Not Coincidences’: Taylor Leading His First Cowboy Team into the Building He Wrestled His First NCAA Championships

STILLWATER — In 2011, David Taylor competed in his first NCAA Wrestling Championships at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia; next week, he’ll coach at the event for the first time — in the same arena.

The parallels are made a little more eerie by the fact that Taylor’s first opponent in that 2011 tournament was Oklahoma State’s Neil Erisman (now the head coach at Little Rock), who Taylor beat 13-2.

“I think timing in life, there’s not coincidences,” Taylor said Thursday. “But at the same time, it rotates, and that’s where it’s hosted this year. Pennsylvania’s wrestling, it’s rich in tradition. I think it’s gonna be an exciting tournament. It’s gonna be a great environment. Ready to go.”

Taylor was undefeated in that redshirt freshman season at Penn State up until the NCAA final, where Arizona State’s Bubba Jenkins pinned him. In Taylor’s first round match with Erisman, a commentator described the young Taylor as “all offense.” Some things never change. Up to that final, Taylor had outscored his first four opponents 46-9. Flash forward to 2025, and he’s constantly stressing scoring as many points as possible.

“I remember just being excited to compete,” said Taylor thinking back to that 2011 tournament. “What was unique about my freshman year was I just was wrestling with my hair on fire. I was looking to score the entire time. I think in the tournament, I went out with the same mentality. It cost me a little bit in the finals, but that just is what it is. I think I was excited to complete. I think that’s what our guys are — they’re excited to go out and compete.”

In his first season leading a college wrestling program, Taylor has led the Cowboys to their first outright Big 12 tournament title since 2020. OSU has seven wrestlers seeded in the top eight of their weight classes — the most since having nine in 2017. If wrestlers finish in the top eight, they earn All-American status. The last time the Cowboys put at least seven on the podium was 2017 (finishing that season with eight). The last time OSU had more than three All-Americans in a season came in 2021, when they put six on the podium.

If this tournament goes like Taylor’s first as a wrestler and he finishes second, it’d be the first time the Cowboys got in the top two since 2016. The projected team standings based on the seeds for next week would have the Cowboys finishing third — two points behind Iowa. That would mark OSU’s highest team finish since 2021.

All that is to say that the OSU program is making strides in the right direction.

It feels like OSU took a step forward last year. The Cowboys did well in the portal, brining in starters Izzak Olejnik, Troy Spratley and Tagen Jamison. Olenjik earned All-American status, while Spratley and Jamison made the national tournament as freshmen and enter this year’s national tournament as sophomores expected to compete for All-American status and perhaps individual gold.

Then this first season under Taylor has felt like an even bigger step forward with another impressive portal haul and all the on-the-mat success this season has brought. We’ll know just how big that step is next weekend.

“Our team’s been really close over the past couple years,” OSU senior Dustin Plott said. “The last two years has been the closest group of guys that I’ve had in my team here at Oklahoma State as far as we’re buddies outside the room. We’re going fishing, bowling, hanging out, doing things outside. I think that really helps the overall culture. When your friends are going the extra mile with their diet and their work and you’re around them all the time and see that, it just, I think, brings everyone’s level up.”