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Impact of NCAA Rule Changes on Scoring

Wrestlers were rewarded with more points for doing the same things. What else happened?

We just finished the first NCAA wrestling season with revised match point awards for takedowns and near falls.

What impact did those changes have in the first season after the changes?

We dug into our database of college wrestling matches to find out.*

Tech Falls Increased

With respect to match outcomes, decisions declined in favor of a significant increase in technical falls and, to a lesser extent, an increase in major decisions. Pins were unchanged.

Takedowns Decreased

Average number of takedowns and non-penalty scoring events per match both decreased from the T2 rules in effect prior to Sept 1 2023. Near falls are unchanged.

Match Scores Didn’t Change

The match scores occurring most frequently are roughly the same when taking into account the higher point values for a takedown. NCAA wrestling matches remain low scoring, tightly contested affairs in the T3 era.

Takeaways

  • The rule changes are shortening match and event durations by making a technical fall easier to achieve prior to regulation time expiration.

  • Because technical falls and major decisions are occuring more often, team scores should be higher under the new rules.

  • So far, there’s no evidence that increasing the match point values for takedowns and near falls generated any more ‘action’ or scoring activity. Indeed, scoring activity is down slightly with the T3 rules.

  • The NCAA wrestling rules committee hasn’t articulated a measurable goal for the rule changes, so we can’t objectively evaluate the results as desirable or not.

    Here is the rationale recorded in the REPORT OF THE NCAA WRESTLING RULES COMMITTEE APRIL 17-19, 2023, ANNUAL MEETING:

    ”To better reflect the skill and energy required to secure a takedown.

    Increasing the points awarded will incentivize wrestlers to take additional risk in the

    neutral position, providing increased opportunities for both offensive and defensive

    takedowns.”

    Makes sense that three match points could provide more “incentive.” Whether there were more “opportunities for … takedowns” is a matter of opinion.

  • NFHS is adopting the NCAA scoring changes. Other than eliminating differences between high school and college rules — generally, a good idea in our view — what is the NFHS trying to accomplish?

  • It’s early in the game. We’ll take another look after the 2024-2025 season.

Improvements/Suggestions:

From around the wrestling-verse, we’ve seen some feedback. Here’s a summary:

  • Intermat: normalize data to account for matches that don’t last seven minutes such as pins and technical falls. The metric in this case would be scoring events per match clock minute or scoring events per seven match clock minutes (full match). This is possible and we will work on it.

  • Intermat: are the differences in the averages statistically significant? Good question. We will investigate.

  • Intermat: are takedowns the result of initiating or countering? This statistics isn’t recorded so not possible.

  • Facebook: how many are offensive versus defensive takedowns? This statistic isn’t recorded so not possible.

  • Facebook: was there an increase or decrease in stalemates? This statistic isn’t recorded so not possible.

* Roughly 6,700 matches generated by college level users of Takedown Scoring and Stats. Disqualifications, defaults and overtime excluded from analysis.

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