Rutgers wrestling kicked off their 2021-22 season yesterday at the Jersey Mike’s Arena in a quad meet. It was the first time fans were in attendance for a Rutgers wrestling event since the 2020 Big Ten tournament, which was held in the RAC.

The Scarlet Knights hosted New Jersey City University, Cleveland State and Binghamton for their first three matches of the new season. As head coach Scott Goodale announced earlier in the week, he used multiple wrestlers throughout the day, with nine of ten weight classes having two different grapplers see action throughout the day.

Rutgers shut out NJCU 48 – 0, who is coached by former Rutgers wrestling director of operations, Harry Turner. The team kept momentum going throughout the day, as the Scarlet Knights went on to dominate Cleveland State 35 – 3, and then defeat Binghamton 34 – 9.

“Pleased with the effort, fired up about it”, Coach Goodale said about his team’s performance. “I think this is just a step, we’re going to get way better. We have to get way better”.

As Goodale is well aware of, Sunday was, and will be, the easiest day of competition Rutgers has this season. His team will face a ranked opponent in UNC in just two weeks, then will have the Midlands Tournament about a month later, which is the equivalent of a miniature national tournament. After the new year, Rutgers will move on to the conference portion of their season, where the competition will be grueling every Friday night and Sunday afternoon.

Despite what lies ahead for Rutgers, a lot of promise was shown by this program for their first competition of the year. This team has a lot of talent up and down the lineup, with quite a bit of depth behind the strong starting lineup.

There are many takeaways from Rutgers’ three dual meets at their home opener, but five jumped out in particular. Here are TKR’s five major takeaways from Rutgers wrestling’s first day of action.

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