Chris Ayres leaving as Princeton University wrestling coach for Stanford

Chris Ayres has resigned as Princeton University’s head wrestling coach to become the head coach at Stanford University.

Stanford announced the move on its website Monday night.

Ayres revitalized the Princeton program during his 17 seasons as the Tigers’ coach.

Long-time Princeton assistant coach Joe Dubuque could be a leading candidate to succeed Ayres.

The change by Ayres comes less than six months after former Delbarton two-time NJSIAA champion Pat Glory put the exclamation point on Ayres’ reclamation project by becoming Princeton’s first national champion since 1951 and just its second ever by winning the NCAA 125-pound championship last March 18 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Ayres will replace Rob Koll, who resigned as Stanford’s coach late last month after two seasons at the Palo Alto, Calif. school to become the head coach at the University of North Carolina.

"After 17 years of building the Princeton program I am ready for a new challenge," Ayres said, according to the Standford website." My experience at Princeton has uniquely prepared me to take the Stanford wrestling team to new heights."

At North Carolina, Koll replaced Coleman Scott, who resigned after eight seasons to become the associate head coach at Oklahoma State - his alma mater -  under legendary head coach John Smith.

Where Stanford is headed

Ayres will inherit a Stanford program that will join the Atlantic Coast Conference beginning in Aug. 2024.

Stanford had been in the Pacific 12 Conference for many years, but the Pac 12 has been hit hard by the changing landscape in college sports.

Many schools have left that conference in the past year. That includes Southern California, UCLA, Oregon and Washington lwho will join the Big Ten Conference beginning next summer.

The Stanford program has been in major flux in recent seasons.

In the summer of 2020, the Stanford administration announced its wrestling program and 10 other sports programs were going to be cut after the 2021 school year due to financial difficulties created by the pandemic.

However, the momentum created by former Bergen Catholic three-time NJSIA champion Shane Griffith winning the 2021 NCAA 165-pound champion helped save the program.

Griffith, who was the national runner-up at 165 in 2022 and the NCAA fifth-place finisher at 165 last year for Stanford, has transferred to the University of Michigan as a graduate student for his final season of collegiate eligibility.

Ayres accomplishments at Princeton

However, Ayres is used to a big challenge in building a program.

Princeton went 0-35 in his first two seasons. But, Ayres and his coaching staff gradually built the program to the point where it became a force on the national scene.

The Tigers, led by Glory and a third-place finish from two-time national top three finisher Quincy Monday (165), finished 13^th in the 2023 NCAA Tournament.

In 2022, Glory and Monday (157) became Princeton’s first national finalists since 2002. That was the first time Princeton had two national finalists in the same season.

In 2020, Princeton won the Ivy League championship for the first time since 1986, when it snapped Cornell’s 92-match, 18-year Ivy League winning streak. Cornell’s head coach at that time was Koll.

The Tigers also defeated Rutgers University that same season for their first win over the Scarlet Knights for the first time since Dec. 8, 1990. Rutgers had won 23 straight matches over Princeton before the Tigers’ 18-15 win on Feb. 23, 2020 at Jadwin Gymnasium.

Princeton also had a program-record four All-Americans in 2020 when the national tournament was canceled due to the pandemic.

Glory (125), Matthew Kolodzik (149), Monday (157) and Patrick Brucki (197) were all named National Wrestling Coaches Association (NWCA) First Team All-Americans that season.

The year before, the Tigers had a then program-record three All-Americans in 2019 when Brucki (197), Kolodzik (149) and Glory (125) finished fourth, fifth and sixth respectively.

Kolodzik, who was also third at 149 in 2018 and seventh at 141 in 2017, became the program’s first four-time All-American in 2021. Glory matched that last season.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Princeton wrestling: Chris Ayres resigns as coach, headed to Stanford