Building a Division I wrestling schedule is like putting together a puzzle. When you’re a coach of the dominant dynasty of the day, competing requirements conspire to make the enterprise a challenging endeavor.
The NCAA sets the start and end dates and binds your “competition” date limit to 16 (with quite a few exceptions / exclusions that provide some extra flexibility we haven’t seen Penn State take full advantage of yet), and the Big Ten takes nine of those when it sets its conference schedule.
Penn State Wrestling is still chasing its goal of becoming financially independent of the PSU Athletic Department, so they need to make sure enough home matches are scheduled, to assure the program stays flush.