Lewis and Clark began their expedition from Missouri in 1804, journeying along the Missouri River and eventually making it to the Pacific Ocean. But 200 years later, wrestling still hasn’t followed in their footsteps.

While the sport is mostly an afterthought in the West, it is alive and well in the Midwest, where you will find the Big Ten Conference.

Although Northwestern has had a successful 2005-06 campaign, winning its most league matches since 1990, it has traditionally been the victim of what Michigan coach Joe McFarland calls “the best wrestling conference in the country.”

The numbers back up McFarland’s statement. Nine of the 11 Big Ten teams are ranked in the top 20 in the country and four are ranked in the top 10. Of the 200 individuals ranked in the top 20 in their weight classes, 67 reside in the Big Ten. Even more astoundingly, the conference houses 40 of the 100 ranked in the top 10.

For Big Ten wrestlers, this level of competition can be difficult to adjust to.

“My first two years, there were eight guys in my class who were in the top 15 in the Big Ten,” senior John Velez said. “It was one of the most brutal weight classes. I was 13th in the country but only seventh in the Big Ten, which was really frustrating. But now that I’m older, I’ve seen the benefit, in terms of pecking order. When you’re the best in the Big Ten, you’re the best in the nation.”

Senior Will Durkee, who transferred to NU from Virginia this season, compared the Big Ten favorably to his former conference.

“There’s definitely a tougher schedule here,” Durkee said. “The tournaments are tougher and there’s a much tougher dual schedule. But it prepares you for the end of the season.

“It’s nice to be in the Big Ten, where wrestling is a big deal. Where I was before in the ACC, basketball was everything.”

Wrestling’s prominence at many Big Ten schools and the competitiveness it creates become primary recruiting tools for many coaches.

“When you recruit, you tell the kids it’s better to be in the middle of the storm than to be outside of it,” Cysewski said. “The Big Ten is in the middle of the storm and that’s where the action is. It’s the elite of the elite.”

However, things weren’t always that way. The Big Ten had only one or two strong teams in the 1960s and 70s, according to Ohio State coach Russ Hellickson, who has been involved with Big Ten wrestling for most of the last 35 years as a wrestler and coach.

But things began to change in the late 80s, when Big Ten schools made a commitment to wrestling when many other institutions were dropping their programs, Hellickson said. The result is a vastly different wrestling landscape today.

“There’s more depth and more quality programs,” McFarland said. “Almost all the teams are in the top 25, which hasn’t always been the case. Coaches at different schools have worked hard to get their programs off and going.”

A lot of the conference’s strength comes from its own backyard. Big Ten schools are all located in areas where wrestling is well established.

“A lot of it is historical,” Cysewski said. “It’s a blue-collar sport. Anybody can do it, but I think it attracts that Midwest mentality of getting up in the morning and working hard.”

As a result, Big Ten schools are able to build some of the nation’s best rosters with mostly Midwestern athletes. NU, for example, has no wrestlers from west of Louisiana, and only two of the 23 on the roster are from non-Big Ten states.

Because of the talent in the conference, the few teams who are not up to par are in danger of getting trampled. It happened to NU when the Cats went winless in the Big Ten over a five-year period ending last year. This season it’s happened to the Buckeyes, who are 0-8 in the conference just three years after finishing third in the nation.

“This year we’re young and inexperienced and we’ve taken it on the chin,” Hellickson said. “But we’ve also had injuries. We haven’t had our full lineup in most of the season, and the Big Ten is not a place to be anything less than 100 percent.”

Meanwhile, the Wildcats appear to be headed in the opposite direction. Since that five-year drought, they won two conference matches last season and five this season.

“It’s recruiting, recruiting, recruiting,” Cysewski said. “You have to get good athletes here, athletes who want to work hard and want to be coached.”

Reach Andrew Simon at [email protected].