I believe the Kansas age group has its pluses and minuses. My son has benefited and had dominating years on the top of his bracket, this year as a young 14 yr old, he had a transition year, he had a great middle school season early 15-1, then in folkstyle was 32-10, all of those losses prior to qualifying coming to older kids and state medalists. He qualified for state but was definitely physically behind the kids in his age group. He will turn around and be on top of his age group in freestyle and this creates a real yo-yo that can be tough for kids in the 8 to 14 yr old range.

I have lived in other states where the Jan cutoff is used, with that we matched up well for the USA national freestyle/greco competitions, honestly the emphasis there was the development of freestyle and greco skills as opposed to folkstyle. the emphasis was placed on this for the national exposure for the youth involved and college recruiting. Also absent in these states were any kind of folkstyle competition on the state level for any high school youth. the kids finished in high school and started in on freestyle to prep for the Junior national competitions in mid to late April. In Kansas, we extend the folkstyle competition and the juniors are behind the curve getting in to national freestyle/greco mode.

I have thought that maybe this could happen. a continuation of the usa state wrestling tourney with the cut off being 8th grade. As an alternative for the high school age kids perhaps an open high school tourney immediately following high school state, no qualifier, just an open tourney, solve those best of the best questions.
the tourney could be totally open or divided on classes, freshman, soph, junior--

Have the freestyle/greco season start for the high school kids immediately after state,,so a month earlier than now. We have great high school talent in the state and we need to funnel it to the freestyle/greco national arenas, emphasize the talent we have and force Kansas even more upon the national scene.