The men’s wrestling season 2024-25 is in full swing! Particularly for the Iowa Hawkeyes, who are leading ahead with a 6-0 win streak. But 5 days before they meet the Badgers at Wisconsin’s home arena, a false alert created panic in the Hawkeyes’ fan pit. There was a disastrous confusion that may have given Iowa’s competitors a brief sigh of relief. But wrestling fans were certainly furious.

The Iowa Hawkeyes’ wrestling major Patrick Kennedy’s name, who is a two-time national qualifier at 165 and 174 pounds, started making rounds on the internet recently, for no mistake of his own. News that the wrestler had been dropped off from Iowa’s competing squad for the season started circulating, which sent shockwaves through the wrestling fan community. It created chaos: Is Kennedy a Hawkeye or has he packed his bags? No one knew.

But what caused this to happen? On January 6, when the latest snapshots from the online Iowa Hawkeyes website did not show Patrick Kennedy’s name on the 2024-25 roster, rumors circulated that he’s been taken off of it, sending fans into a frenzy. Only about 20 minutes later, everyone realized it was an error. A relieving update then surfaced that it was nothing but a technical malfunction that caused this to happen on the website and that Kennedy’s still a pivotal part of the squad.

Soon, the official news broke out on X, straight from the Iowa Hawkeyes’ Athletics Associate Director of Strategic Communications, Sam Busler’s account. He wrote, “Patrick Kennedy is still on the Iowa roster. We recently updated the backend of our website and that caused him and others to disappear. Working to resolve ASAP.” However, wrestling fans were in no mood to let go of this blunder as they started making digs at the school. One of them made a hilarious remark, “Per Iowa Spokesperson the computer was working alone.”

Obviously, this had to be an error! Just recently, in November 2024, Patrick Kennedy had expressed that he’d want to be a part of no other side but the Iowa Hawkeyes. “It makes no sense in my head to go somewhere and hate it and get paid, but you just hate being there,” he said. “I love being here. I grew up not with a lot of money, so if I finish wrestling and go put my work boots on the rest of my life, so what? I don’t care, because I love being here,” his words echoed his love for the Iowa tent. But the fans are sure about to beat the officials over this for a long time. After all, this rash mistake did create a false scare for a short while.

Wrestling fans roast Iowa Hawkeyes over the technical blunder

It’s only normal for people to get a little suspicious when something like this happens. And so did one of the fans, who commented, “Not a chance this computer that erased Kennedy was working alone.” While it’s quite possible for websites to experience such errors due to bugs or other reasons, the fan suspected if this was the case here or there’s more to the story. After all, it looks like controversy season for the Hawkeyes.

And most importantly, why would the Iowa Hawkeyes drop Pat Kennedy without a warning? They know that there are a lot of college programs that would go to great lengths to have a talent like him on their rosters. Just look at his recent feats for example. We know that Kennedy’s qualified for NCAAs twice, he’s reached the Big Ten Finals at 165 pounds, and he’s made it on the U23 World team this offseason.

But such a mistake isn’t normal either. Especially after Kennedy has openly confessed his love for his team and gone to great lengths to do them proud. Thus, a fan chimed in with, “Seems weird either way. I would be/am so shocked if he leaves especially after what he said in the past, but it seems odd you take a 4 year loyal R12 wrestler off the roster by accident.”

However, there seems no reason for the fans to be dubious about the Iowa Hawkeyes’ intentions too. The officials are as as impressed by Pat Kennedy as the fans are. The Iowa Wrestling Coach, Tom Brands particularly speaks very highly of Kennedy. “He’s like the epitome of what you want out of a stablemate,” Brands said in November 2024. He’d also expressed how Kennedy ticks all the right boxes as a wrestler at Iowa, “He’s loyal, he’s driven, he sticks up for his teammate, he holds them accountable… great leadership characteristics.”

Also, if it makes anything better for Pat Kennedy’s fans, one of the observers pointed out, “It also doesn’t have Cullan Schriver on there!” If this fan’s observation is right, it doesn’t look like a deliberate conspiracy against Pat Kennedy but what actually was a technical error. Ideally, at 141 pounds, the 2024-25 Iowa Hawkeyes wrestling lineup should have Ryder Block and Cullan Schriever’s names. But, the latter was missing from the website list too.

However, at the end of the day, many agreed: this was one hilarious mistake. A fan couldn’t stop laughing at the kind of issues the Hawkeyes were facing while they were in the middle of the peak season. “Update: Iowa having computer issues 😆” they commented. After all, location-wise, Iowa has a strong information technology industry. The state is also home to one of the best technology institutes. Thus, this unusual mix-up was a bit hard to digest for the fans.

Nonetheless, let’s hope that the Hawkeyes clap back with a fitting response on the wrestling mats. Their season is set for seven non-conference duals and eight Big Ten Conference duals, which will go on till February 23, 2025. Here’s hoping the fans who had been on tenterhooks all through this fiasco today get to see Pat Kennedy’s ace form on mats soon! What do you think? Share your thoughts with us below!