The tension is only growing! Amidst the building beef between #1 seeded Penn State Wrestling and the OSU Cowboys, who are at #3, especially following OSU’s Wyatt Hendrickson winning the Hodge trophy over Penn State’s five-time title holder Carter Starocci, and, of course, that whole thing with Cael Sanderson having once coached David Taylor at Penn State and the awkwardness that followed when the former took on the coaching position at OSU, a new pawn has been thrown into the mix, i.e., Lee Roper.

Roper, who was a member of Penn State’s top competitor Iowa’s coaching staff when he joined as a volunteer in 2015, is now set to join OSU! The news was broken by FloWrestling on X with the post, “Lee Roper will be joining the Cowboy RTC in Stillwater, Oklahoma as Executive Director and Senior Level RTC Coach!” Complex love triangles don’t stand a chance against NCAA college wrestling, and now the burning question is, What will Cael Sanderson say about this?

It’s not looking like it will be anything good, because the truth is, Roper is an asset to OSU. He has nearly a decade of wrestling experience behind him and also co-founded Compound Wrestling—a famous Georgia-based wrestling club that produced multiple Division I athletes. Lee Roper’s life motto can be found on his LinkedIn profile: “Be selfless, be solution-focused, and hustle,” along with his take on creating growth.

“I’m all about fostering growth through discipline and unwavering passion.” Surely this approach will hold OSU in good stead, if not move one place up on the rankings, irking Penn State even further.

The beginning of the beef: What’s happening with OSU and Penn State, and how will Lee Roper moving to OSU affect this?

Ok, so it all seems to have started when Penn State’s coach Cael Sanderson was asked about his former student David Taylor’s move to coaching at OSU. “Coaching and competing are two different things,” is all Sanderson said. Though it isn’t too much of a jab, there has since been some palpable tension rising between the two universities.

Since then, OSU hasn’t done too badly for itself, finishing the 2025 NCAA season in 3rd place and having Wyatt Hendrickson bag the Hodge Trophy over five-time national title holder Carter Starocci. However, Penn State remains number one and also scored its fourth consecutive national title. But it doesn’t look like Taylor is sitting back and letting it all happen; no, he is instead making big moves to move up.

It was announced earlier in the year that the Cowboys added French wrestler Zoheir El Ouarraqe to their coaching staff, which will certainly give them an international edge. But aside from that OSU has been stealing Nittany Lions left, right and centre. Gary Steen (125/133) and Alex Facundo (157/165/174) who didn’t have starting roles at Penn State, managed to get more time in the limelight when they transferred to OSU.

Further, after Sanderson made a big move: landing top talent Rocco Welsh, the 2024 NCAA runner-up, creating a budding lineup battle at 184 lbs with another talented recruit, Zack Ryder, also on their team. Soon after Welsh’s commitment, Ryder entered the transfer portal and quickly moved to…yup, OSU. There is some speculation about whether this was linked to his friendship with David Taylor from their time together at none other than the M2 training center near Penn State!

So as if the ties between the two teams are tangled up enough, now with Lee Roper in the mix, things seem to be heating up even more. Let’s see what next year brings to know how this all plays out.