CP: What do you think we have to improve on before the tournament?

SC: For these first tournaments, almost everybody’s going in as a beginner, novice, or advanced. We need to get a future look on the tournament and perfect our shots. We also need to make sure we get well learned on how to defend sprawl and get our cardio in pretty good shape. That’s what it’s going to  come down to – who’s going to burn out by the end of the match, I believe.

CP: Do you think we could win the tournament?

SC: I think that we certainly could make a pretty good showing. Tennessee has a lot of experienced wrestlers but since we are going to have people coming in at that beginner level that we’ve got a good chance. We’ve got a good mix of people going. It’s an individual tournament, so it’s not really something that we win as a team but i’m expecting to have a few winners come out. We’ve got two who are going in as advanced and that’s Will Picou and Clay Crane. They’re gonna compete at a bit higher level.

CP: How big is the team? 

SC: Right now we have a solid roster of everybody that’s eligible and dragonfly everything. 28. I talked to the football team this morning and we have about 20 interests. We’re still waiting on our football players until Wednesday and hopefully see them in December. So we’re at about that 30. Mark, I expect to push to that 45-50 mark. 

CP: What is the team working on right now to get ready for the tournament? 

SC: We’re trying to do some libraries to give everybody a little experience with that. We’re just reviewing real quickly. The few things that techniques that we have gone are our duck under reviewing and our double leg. We’re starting to work on sprawls.

CP:Where’s the team practice? 

SC: Right now we’re practicing at UFM on Coley Road. Our mats come in either November 10 or 11th.  

CP: Who is the main coach on the team. 

SC: I’m the head coach. But, we’ve got everybody doing their part. We have a consultant coach, Coach Alexandre, he’s a level coach who’s assisting us. We have, Grady Hurley, who’s got 20 plus years. Five training experiences professional MMA fighter and now we also have Brian Fox of Mississippi Wrestling Foundations helping with their top-bottom work on Tuesdays.