Timely Information for Takedown Scoring and Stats Users
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.
The Chart for Every Practice Room Wall
How important are takedowns?
We looked at over 2,000 matches for 63 wrestlers from six high school programs spread across the country and found that scoring more takedowns than your opponent is
How Important are Takedowns?
We looked at over 2,000 matches for 63 wrestlers from six high school programs spread across the country and found that scoring more takedowns than your opponent is highly correlated with having a winning season. Each wrestler had a minimum of ten matches and we considered only varsity events.
Winning Percentage v. Takedown Percentage
Thirty wrestlers scored on average the same or fewer takedowns than their opponent per match. Of these wrestlers, only three (10%) wrestlers had winning seasons. In contrast, thirty three wrestlers scored more takedowns, on average, than their opponent per match. Of these wrestlers, thirty one (94%) wrestlers had winning seasons.
The data supports what we instinctively know: takedown proficiency is critical to becoming a successful competitor. Next time an athlete says "prove it!", just post this graph on the practice room wall!
Statistics courtesty of Takedown Scoring and Stats app users.
Originally published October 2015.
What Does the Data Say About Short-Time Scoring?
To gauge the relevance of short-time scoring as a predictor of victory, we gathered data from 7,355 matches wrestled by 181 athletes at 13 high schools, all users of Takedown Scoring and Stats.
We filtered the data as follows:
Included varsity competition only
Included wrestlers with greater than 20 periods of short-time scoring data
Excluded exhibitions and forfeits from win-loss record
From this sample, we found the following:
With a negative Short-Time Scoring Average Point Advantage the probability of having a winning season is 41%.
With a zero or positive Average Point Advantage the probability of having a winning season is 82%.
This chart shows win percentage as a function of Average Point Advantage for this sample (each dot is a wrestler):
And, while the relevance of short-time scoring is hard to deny, we wondered if improved short-time scoring performance — a positive and increasing Average Point Advantage — is simply a matter of experience. That is, does advantage increase as a function of cumulative match experience?
Surprisingly, in this sample, the answer is no. There’s no meaningful correlation between experience (measured in matches) and short-time scoring performance.
So, we know (at least in this sample) that short-time scoring proficiency can increase one’s chances of having a winning season. It also appears that short-time scoring performance doesn’t naturally improve with experience. Maybe scoring in short-time is a skill (or perhaps a mindset) requiring focus and practice.
Something to think about for coaches wanting to help wrestlers get to the next level.
If you’re interested in tracking short-time scoring performance, check out Takedown Scoring and Stats.
Emerging from the Darkness: High School Wrestling Participation 2022-2023
NFHS wrestling participation for 2022-2023. Coming out of the COVID darkness and into the light, boys rebounding to 2014-2015 levels. As expected, strong growth in girls programs with one concerning metric.
The NFHS recently released their high school sports participaton data for 2022-2023. Total wrestling participants was 305,593, a record in this millenia, representing 16% growth from the previous survey year. This growth far outpaces the year-year growth in total high school sports participation which was 3.1%.
Overall, boys wrestling rebounded to levels not seen since 2014-2015. While the number of boys teams has remained roughly constant, the number of participants increased by 11% to 256,466.
Girls wrestling continues to grow like a weed with 49,127 participants in 6,381 programs representing year-year growth of 55% and 33%, respectively. One in six high school wrestlers was a girl in 2022-2023. One cloud for girls wrestling is the anemic growth in average team size which was reported at 7.7 wrestlers per team. At historical growth rates, the average girls team won’t be capable of filling a minimum dual meet roster for another 20+ years.
Among high school sports participants, wrestling’s popularity has increased a bit. Wrestling’s share of all high school sports participants edged up slightly from 3.5% to 3.9%, with boys at 5.7% and girls at 1.5%.
Click on any chart to enlarge.
Number of Wrestling Programs
Number of Participants
Wrestlers Per Team
Wrestling Share of High School Sports
Revised Shot Success Rate Statistic
We were doing it wrong. That’s fixed.
You might have noticed that the Shot Success Rate report didn’t jive with the Leaderboard’s display for Shot Success Rate. That was a bug.
In digging deeper, we found a small error in how we were calculating the Shot Success Rate statistic. It’s fixed now.
For the calculation, a shot is successful if the next scoring action (next scoring tap) is a takedown. Otherwise, the shot is unsuccessful.
So, your Shot Success Rate statistics will change and, now, the Leaderboard and Shot Success Rate reports are consistent.
Also, our resident math wizard is happier so it’s a win all around.
Short Time Scoring Report
Important Predictor of Match Outcome
Why do coaches care about “short time” performance?
The reason is simple: points scored in short time are difficult for an opponent to make up because of the imminent time-out due to match clock expiration. Short time scoring is similar to edge scoring in this sense.
Many in the wrestling community believe that scoring the first takedown is the best predictor of victory and that might be true. However, short-time scoring may be just as relevant and if you’re looking to goose your winning percentage, short-time scoring merits some practice attention.
Implementation in Takedown Scoring and Stats
This Short Time Scoring report can be found in the Reports section of the app.
Recognizing that ‘short time’ means different things to different coaches, Takedown allows you to set a short time value of 5, 10, 15 or 20 seconds. For each wrestler, the report displays the number of points scored and conceded within this short time ‘bucket’ prior to clock expiration. Use filters to narrow or expand the scope over which short time scoring is calculated.
The report also provides a ratio - Average Point Advantage - that allows you to quickly evaluate a wrestler's short time performance. This statistic is simply short-time points scored minus short time points conceded divided by the total number of periods wrestled.
If the Average Point Advantage is positive, then your wrestler is scoring more short-time points than conceded. If the value negative then the opposite would be true. This wrestler will be far less likely, on average, to win matches.
As a coach that's what you want to know.
The accuracy of the Short Time Report depends on your having scored the match live because the stat requires an accurate match clock. If the match has been marked as “transcribed” then Takedown excludes the match from the short time scoring statistics.
Update: New Video Features
Last summer we added to video recording, review and sharing to Takedown Scoring and Stats.
During this past high school season (2018-2019), about 40% of Takedown users recorded video in the app and produced more than 17,000 match videos. Of these recordings, roughly 13,000 were uploaded to the cloud (team YouTube accounts). Of the videos uploaded to YouTube, roughly 20% were also posted to Takedown LIVE so that fans can view the scoring transcript and video in a single app. Takedown Scoring and Stats, by virtue of a robust and committed user community, is most likely the leading publisher of scholastic wrestling videos on the Internet.
Top five states for recording video:
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Georgia
Virginia
Tennessee
And the top ten programs:
Tuscaloosa
Glacier
Flathead
Paulding County
Seneca Valley
Collierville
West Branch
Quincy
Riverside
John Overton
Takedown users typically record in high resolution with 82% of all videos recorded in 720P or 1080P.
Video is an important feature for Takedown users and we continue our investment in this area.
More info on Takedown video here:
https://www.levelchanger.com/blog/2018/6/15/faq-video-recording
Video + Stats
We’re excited to deliver video recording, playback and cloud sharing features.
Video + Stats Now Available
Takedown Scoring and Stats newest exciting feature is integrated video along with our marketing-leading scoring capability.
Now, Takedown users can simultaneously record video while scoring a match.
In addition, Takedown will upload match video to the cloud and share to your team with a few taps.
Video can be reviewed from within Takedown or on any desktop, laptop or mobile device.
ScoreSeek(TM) allows the user to advance or rewind to a specific scoring activity or shot attempt.
For a FAQ on this new and exciting feature, click here.
For a list of all tutorials and support articles for this feature, click here.
Record Video and Score Matches Simultaneously in Takedown
Just because you like sausage doesn’t mean you want to live in a sausage factory. Video is a lot like sausage.
Coaches love match video. But they don't like hauling around separate recording devices, transferring files from camcorders (or mobile devices), renaming video files, organizing video libraries and making their video library easily accessible to athletes, parents and other coaches. It's one of those love-hate things. Video consumption is valuable. Video production is a pain (and time consuming).
Integrated Video Recording/Review
Luckily, Apple's iPad is a video production powerhouse. Our upcoming Fall 2018 release will utilize the iPad's native video capabilities to offer video recording and review from within the Takedown Scoring and Stats app. This new feature address the major pain points of video production: recording, storage, labeling, organization, cloud storage and sharing.
Here's a Q&A about this exciting feature.
Demo and Early Access
If you'd like a demo or want to kick the tires, let us know by filling out this form. We expect to continue internal testing this month, offer pre-release this summer and App Store availability in October.
How Fat are High School Wrestlers?
Our annual look at fat percentage at certification.
We looked at various data from the weight certification process conducted by state high school wrestling associations during the 2016-17 season. For the 226,000 wrestlers in the database, average fat percentage at certification was 16.9%, up slightly from 16.6% in the previous year.
By grade, fat percentage at certification dips for eight graders then trends back up and levels off in 10th grade.
Tap or click the graph to enlarge
By minimum weight class, average fat percentage looks very similar to the last two seasons.
Tap or click the graph to enlarge.
Lastly, a look at fat percentage at certification by state.
Tap or click the graph to enlarge.
New Mexico sure has some lean wrestlers! Note that the two states with the highest fat percentage at certification -- Oklahoma and Texas -- are the same two states that added the most wrestlers from 2010-11 to 2015-16. Hmmm.