2/4/2021 other sports

Meet Isaac Trumble, NC State wrestling's newest star

Ryan Tice • TheWolfpackCentral

Editor

“Who is this kid? … I’ve never heard of Isaac Trumble! Where did they find this guy?”

That was the reaction of FloWrestling Radio Live co-host and former two-time national champion wrestler Ben Askren after the podcast started talking about NC State freshman Isaac Trumble the first day they went on air following his sterling debut.

NC State Wolfpack wrestling 197-pounder Isaac Trumble — Trumble, a true freshman 197-pounder, is 5-0 on the year with four pins, including an upset over the nation's No. 5-ranked wrestler at the time. (NC State Athletics)

Trumble — a native of Springfield, Neb. (population 1,466) — spawned more whiplash than a rush-hour pileup with the double-takes he caused across the wrestling world during his first chance in NC State's starting lineup Jan. 22 against Pitt. The true freshman 197-pounder was the headline of the weekend in the sport, after he upset No. 5 Nino Bonaccorsi of Pitt with a dominant 6-1 victory.

The Open Mat and USA Wrestling both named him their national wrestler of the week, while the ACC awarded him its weekly conference honor.

Now, Trumble wasn’t a complete unknown — he was ranked among the top 60 recruits nationally by all three major outlets that do such things. He had won state titles for Millard South in Omaha, Neb., his final two years of high school, during which he went a combined 106-0.

But Nebraska isn’t one of the blue-blood high school prep wrestling states. The state has not produced a blue-chip recruit like Trumble in recent memory, according to The Open Mat editor Earl Smith — but a freshman debuting like Trumble did is impressive, regardless of his recruiting ranking.

“They have a growing club scene that he was part of, and there are a lot of strong guys coming out of Nebraska the next couple years. It’s getting better, but there aren’t a lot of recruits that caliber that came out of there before him,” Smith explained. “… It would’ve been one thing if he had a full year under his belt with the program and redshirted, but coming out like this [as a true freshman] is pretty incredible and rare.”

"Coming out like this [as a true freshman] is pretty incredible and rare.”

— The Open Mat editor Earl Smith on Trumble

Smith admits he’s reluctant to list true freshmen too high when he does The Open Mat’s national rankings. But after Trumble moved to 5-0 with his fourth pin of the year last Friday against UNC, Smith moved Trumble from unranked to No. 9 nationally.

“If you would’ve told me that he’s a junior or senior and he’s one of the top-10 kids, that would not have surprised me,” Smith continued. “I didn’t see that this would happen from day one.”

Most didn't even expect Trumble to start in year one at NC State. The powerhouse Wolfpack just don’t start many true freshmen at this point, and it returned the two wrestlers who split the starting role last season.

Yet, Trumble will let on, in his own confident-yet-humble way when asked, that he “kinda expected to start."

“I always aim to be the best,” he continued. “My goal going into the season was always to win — but that’s everyone’s expectation. But I did put in a lot of training and did a lot of extra work.”

Head coach Pat Popolizio had seen enough from Trumble early on that the rookie was going to get a chance against one of the ACC’s two elite 197-pounders that entered the year ranked among the top five nationally, Bonaccorsi or Virginia’s Jay Aiello.

When the opportunity came, Trumble made the most of it.

True freshman are not only not supposed to beat veterans with résumés like Bonaccorsi — who was one win shy of All-America honors in 2019 and 48-13 in his career, compared to Trumble’s 3-0, at the time — they’re not supposed to have a chance. And they're damn sure not supposed to dominate the way Trumble did.

“I knew I was ready when Pat gave me the nod,” Trumble said. “I felt ready to wrestle and knew that all my training would pay off, and it obviously did.”

“I wasn’t shocked,” Popolizio said of Trumble’s debut. “We still know we’ve got to get better in a lot of areas, but we recruit these guys to be ready to win right away.

“I’m just happy his work ethic and everything he’s doing on the discipline side of things are paying off. It’s an eye opener to some of the other kids we bring in here — you don’t need to wait to win at the highest level right away.”

'Beyond His Years'

On the wrestling mat is just one of many ways Trumble has shown he’s unique and beyond his years.

Despite moving away from Nebraska this summer, he still keeps the farmer’s hours that run in his family; he’s usually up well before sunrise and in bed by 8 p.m.

And once he’s up, he likes to get away, literally. He runs an average of about 20 miles a week and usually prefers to do so out in nature — certainly not a treadmill — and without his phone.

“My girlfriend calls me an old man because I go to bed early, wake up early, have coffee, and I’m not always on my phone,” he admitted.

When Trumble got to NC State, he had been growing his hair out for years … and then one day, while in a hotel room on the team's road trip to Virginia, decided he’d just look up a barber on his not-often-used phone and chop it all off.

“I think my mom and dad like it a little more than my long hair,” he said.

In matches, the 6-4 grappler with an unorthodox style contradicts his age even more.

Before getting what would be the decisive turn against Bonaccorsi, he had picked up a penalty point for locked hands that briefly gave his opponent a 1-0 lead late in the second period.

The next week versus UNC, he allowed two takedowns to his opponent, before coming back from a 4-1 hole and ending the match emphatically with a trip to his opponent’s back and subsequent pin. The bonus points he scored secured the team victory over the rival Tar Heels.

“He’s very mature, beyond his years,” Popolizio said. “His demeanor the whole match was confident and focused. He never got rattled. Sometimes you get a freshman in a pressure situation, and there’s a let down, but he never took his foot off the pedal.”

Now, Trumble is the latest star pupil for Popolizio from a non-traditional wrestling location. It’s reminiscent of Kevin Jack, a true freshman out of Connecticut who was pulled out of redshirt when a teammate got mono and went on a shocking run at the NCAA Championships, where he placed fifth — just two weeks after taking fourth in the ACC.

“People weren’t expecting that, and we were,” Popolizio said of Jack. “We had that much confidence and belief in him, and it makes it dangerous when the kid has the same confidence and belief.

“… We preach to these guys, when you do things right you’re going to put yourself in position to compete right away against the best in the country.”

The Small-Town Kid Goes Big

While Trumble is no longer in Springfield, it’s proven much harder to take the small-town out of him.

Though he isn’t a heavy social media user — that wouldn’t fit his old-soul nature — he did take to Twitter with one of his first observations about Raleigh, back in early August.

“It’s not bad; it’s just a different feeling,” he said of Raleigh, about six months later. “It’s just not that small town feel that I’m used to, where everybody knows everybody and everybody knows what you’re doing. … In my small town, you drive down the road and pass somebody, you wave at them.”

When asked if he still waves to other drivers in his new home, he said, “I try to.”

When asked if people have changed their response and return the greeting yet, Trumble — ever the optimist — simply responds: “No, not yet.”

If he keeps doing the things he’s done in the first few weeks of his college wrestling career, everybody in Raleigh, and beyond, will know exactly who Isaac Trumble is and what he has done.