When David Taylor left behind his legendary wrestling career and decided to go into coaching, many seemed surprised. Despite not making it to Paris 2024, ‘Magic Man’ still seemed to have the wrestling spirit in him. The fact that he then went on to choose the Oklahoma Cowboys as his coaching destination only furthered their doubts.

This is because David would have succeeded the team’s beloved coach, John Smith, while also being a Nittany Lions legend. However, it seems that David Taylor’s choice has proven his doubters completely wrong, as the Cowboys have gone on to a flying start in their regionals with a 6-0 record. The team showed their dominance in their recent wins against Virginia State and at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational. Thus, murmurs have started of David Taylor setting the foundations for an extremely successful career on the team, as head coach.

On December 23rd, former Bellator champion and Missouri Tigers wrestler Ben Askren was asked about his thoughts on Taylor’s start at the Cowboys and whether gauging his success with certainty is too soon at this point. Ben replied with a certain doubt in his mind but praised David Taylor for the recent performances, nevertheless, “I would say a mix of both. I think their Vegas performance was great, and they kind of performed really well from top to bottom. But that being said, I would say, and my general feeling, if I had to bet on this, would be that he’s going to do really well, but there’s always a bump when a new coach comes in because everyone gets excited about the possibilities.”

Ben Askren believes that if the coach successfully navigates this period of downfall in performance, it will be certain that he will be in the game for a long time. David Taylor would also have to go through the same – “So usually I feel like with every single coach, there’s at least like a one-year bump, maybe a couple of-year bump. And then it’s going to kind of fall into, Oh, okay. This guy’s going to be here for a long time. And then, you know, is this really going to be fruitful or not?”. While what Ben said might be true, there’s no doubt that David Taylor’s side is riding high right now. Many have wondered what the reason is behind his immediate success.

David Taylor speaks about the reason for his success at Oklahoma Cowboys

David Taylor’s appointment at OSU right now looks very successful, and he seems to be on the road to becoming a very worthy successor to John Smith. He has done extraordinary work with the team in such a short period of time and has proven his doubters wrong.

David has achieved this through a strict model of discipline and conduct. But he has also paid a lot of attention to a wrestler’s mentality, which could help them win matches. “We talk about, ‘What’s your expectation when you walk out there?’ Do you expect to just win, or do you expect to keep scoring? You know, that’s what we talked about – just keep scoring’.”, he said to FloWrestling in a post-match press conference.

David Taylor’s coaching philosophy puts winning first over everything else. This is important, as, at the end of the day, this is what college wrestling fans desire. But he also wants to develop his wrestler’s skills. For him, this will be achieved through only one thing: “Um, I want the guys to make mistakes; that’s the easiest way we’re going to figure things out, you know, and I don’t know; guys are just pushing themselves in practice, and it’s momentum.” Thus, David seems to harbor a lot of trust in his wrestling side and its capabilities. This has led to their success in the starting matches. Hopefully, they can continue this in the long run, making David all the more successful.