Although the 2025 Big 12 Championships ended with David Taylor becoming the first coach since Cael Sanderson in 2007 to win the team title in his debut season, the Cowboys sure made it tough for themselves. “We needed every single point today,” said Taylor after the dust had settled, and boy, was he right!

After all, they were tied with Northern Iowa at 149.5 having lost all the five final matches ahead of the heavyweight title bout. Troy Sprately, Tagen Jamison, and Dean Hamiti Jr. all suffered extra-time defeats, while Dustin Plott and Luke Surber lost by decisions. Thankfully, heavyweight Wyatt Hendrickson came in clutch to beat Arizona State’s Cohlton Schultz in an 8-5 decision to take the team score to 153.5 and save OSU the embarrassment of a shared title.

Despite the sting of the finals losses, Taylor emphasized that the Big 12s were just a stepping stone toward the ultimate goal. He isn’t losing sleep over these results—instead, he’s already planning for Nationals.

“Today’s not the National Tournament, right? Today’s not the National Tournament. We’re not looking back and saying, ‘Hey, our number one priority is winning the conference tournament,’” Taylor stated post-match, reinforcing that everything is about preparing for March Madness on the mat.

“We want to win the conference tournament, yes. Are we competitive? 100%. But we want to go perform at our best at Nationals. We’re going to perform at our best at Nationals,” he added.

Rather than letting the losses get to his wrestlers, he’s turning them into a lesson as he thinks there were some positives despite the losses.

David Taylor on adjustments for the Nationals

What Taylor is focused on isn’t necessarily the things which did go wrong—it’s how they can work to fine-tune their game in the next two weeks leading up to the NCAA Championships.

“This is great. We’re going to make changes. We’re going to go back and make changes. I think we did some very good things in the matches we lost,” Taylor said.

Mistakes, in his opinion, are not failures-they’re opportunities. “We made a few mistakes? Sure. We encourage the guys to make mistakes. We have to make more mistakes. I think more wrestling works for us. We have to make some more mistakes.”

Taylor is aware that the greatest wrestlers don’t learn only through wins—they mature through defeats. And with only two weeks until Nationals, his team still has time to get it right, adjust, and peak when it matters the most.

At this point, Taylor doesn’t care about rankings, seedings, or records. He is preparing his team for the only thing that matters—the battle at the national level. It’s preparation season. It doesn’t matter if you’re undefeated or whatever your record is coming into the nationals—you start from nothing there, and you better be ready to wrestle.