The NCAA didn’t always have a transfer portal. This option for young athletes was only introduced in 2018 and has offered them the freedom to put their names into a database for different schools and teams without having to ask for permission from their current team. And while this has been great for individual athletes, it is a bit of a burden for the coaches who aren’t particularly sure when things might totally switch up. And also, in certain situations, for podcast hosts like Bo Nickal, when he recently interviewed Zack Ryder, who seemed to go back on everything he said just two days before the podcast was released!
On an episode of Nickals and Dimes, Bo Nickal’s podcast, the former Lion himself asked Zack Ryder what he was excited about for the next year at PSU, and Ryder seemed to be looking towards the future, saying, “Just finally being here, my whole life just watching—I’m excited just like whoever’s in the lineup, just dominating with them,” when Nickal asked him about how he felt about getting into the lineup next year.
He even added, “We could be really good. We have a hammer of a lineup, especially with Marcus Blaze and all these guys coming in. Like, we could get, like, 10 national champs.” That reality, however, didn’t seem to be the end goal for Ryder, who, at the time the podcast was recorded, had presumably already put his name into the transfer portal.
“Shot a few weeks ago…. Awkward…” wrote Bo Nickal on X when the episode was released. Considering everything Zack Ryder shared on the podcast, including other promising lines like, “I’m excited. No matter who’s in the lineup, I just want to go out there and dominate with them. I know you guys talk about it all the time, but I really feel like this recruiting class could be the best team ever at Penn State,” Nickal seemed to genuinely believe he had serious intentions about building a career with his alma mater.
Ryder even made it sound like he was genuinely into Penn State supremacy, adding, “So that’s what I’m excited for just hopefully breaking new records and just keep dominating. Don’t let anybody near us.” “Don’t let anybody near us’, prophetic yet ironic words, because perhaps nobody should have been let near Zack Ryder, who transferred soon after the podcast. But Ryder’s transfer is just one in a series of moves that speak to a heating rivalry between Penn State and OSU.
Zack Ryder and the back-and-forth between OSU and Penn State
Zack Ryder’s change of plans only makes things worse between OSU and Penn State, who ever since Cael Sanderson commented on David Taylor’s appointment as OSU coach, saying, “Coaching and competing are two different things.” It seems as though David Taylor has made it a point to fortify the Cowboys into a champion force whose main aim is to take out the Lions!
And how? By taking Lions out of the Lions.
Zack Ryder joins former Penn State wrestlers Alex Facundo and Gary Steen as the ‘trio of traitors’ from Penn State during the transfer portal. And along with Casey Swiderski from Iowa State, OSU scored 4 new wrestlers during the transfer portal, really making the most of this time.
There’s also the Lee Roper factor! Penn State’s biggest competitor, #2 Iowa’s coach, has been, yes, also poached by the Cowboys in what seems like a strategic move to bring them up closer to the Lions. But then, to balance things out a bit on Penn State’s side, they’ve just done some coach poaching too! In the form of Thomas Gilman, who left Penn State for Stillwater last year but now, a year later, is back with the Nittany Lions.
Cael Sanderson and David Taylor were once coach and student, but it’s clear that all friendliness has morphed into competitiveness as Taylor attempts to knock the Nittany Lions off their perch. Whether that’s an achievable goal or not is a whole ‘nother matter entirely. Either way, let’s see how OSU builds up for next year and if there are any more transfers while the window is still open!
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