True not forced to rely on a true freshman at such a key spot, although our coaches may give us a glimpse of one at center if Cam Jurgens keeps progressing.
I didn’t realize that Nash was in such a small school/division in high school. He literally must face almost no competition in football, and only sporadic competition in wrestling except when he travels to USAW tourneys in the summer.
It's hard to quantify or qualify because at the state level, he wrestles in the largest class because South Dakota only has 2 classes for all schools for wrestling. At your average duel meet, yeah, he's probably going to go against some big, clunky kid, but once you get to the state level or to the invitationals that invite teams from multiple states (it's common to have big meets in places in and around Sioux Falls that draw teams from 3 to 5 states), it's about as competitive as anywhere else. Put it this way: South Dakota's 10th place wrestler would probably get his tail whipped by his equal from Iowa, MN, or NE, but the South Dakota state champion would at least hold his own against the champs from those states on almost any given year. There's quality at the top, but not a lot of depth.
When Hutmacher was an 8th grader there were 3 guys in the heavyweight class who were good enough to wrestle D-1, though not at the All-American level. For whatever reason, his only competition since then has been a kid who was the defending state champ at the level below him who purposefully went up a class so as to get a shot at Hutmacher. It was an epic bout, but Hutmacher's size was too much for him.
In football, the lowest class of 11-man football is a bit larger than what it is in Nebraska because the 9-man schools go as high as 150+ in high school. Historically, Chamberlain has not been much of a football power. It's kind of like what I said about South Dakota wrestling, though: the state champs could more than hold their own against neighboring state champs of equivalent enrollment, but there isn't much depth below the top few teams. I know the Chamberlain coaches personally, and they're pretty dang good, especially for a school that size, so I was somewhat surprised that they didn't go further into the playoffs last fall. I don't think that there is a lot of skill talent on the team. When one of the schools that size gets a top-notch D1 talent at one of the skill positions, they tend to win state championships. Chad Greenway, for example, was a 2-time state champion QB/LB for a 9-man football team (Stickney/Mount Vernon) in the late 90s. Unless he's got NFL caliber speed, you can usually gameplan so as to run away from a D1 lineman. It doesn't mean you'll win, but it's better to have a 300 lb NG chasing a speedy RB on a sweep than running at him with your 180 lb FB.
Are you familiar with the Reiff brothers? Riley is the Vikings OT, and he was a 1st round draft pick out of Iowa. His little brother is currently a D-lineman for Iowa. Both came out of Parkston, SD, which was then playing at the same level as Chamberlain. (Since that time Parkston has dropped down to 9-man football.) Riley Reiff never won a state championship either, but Brady did when he was a senior. He played TE, but he wasn't even the best player on that team, and they barely won state.
Nebraska just offered a scholarship to an athlete out of St. Thomas More in Rapid City, which also plays at that same level of 11-man football. They are regularly in the state championship game, but I think that they've only won it once.
