I have no doubt the Shumate is a humble and good kid, and I think I haven't gotten out of line with my prediction. It is not like I am dragging the kid and saying he is trash. I wouldn't do that, and I hope he succeeds. I am not just saying that to save face, I genuinely hope that he succeeds and you can tell me I was wrong. I love when people succeed, and I think its bad JuJu to hope for others failures.
With that being said, you asked me why I feel the way I do about his upside in college, and I will give you my reasoning behind it as you asked.
I feel like he is the typical man amongst boys high school success story. He was always so much stronger and physically gifted than his opponents. There is a laundry list of guys with this similar story that are shell-shocked by D1 college wrestling. I do think he is a very good wrestler, I am not saying he didn't develop solid technique. I do think, however, that he has made a career out of physically dominating lesser physically gifted wrestlers. I do think that he has done this in a less than stellar weight class, both locally in Ohio and Nationally. When he did have opportunities with the top guys in the country, he often fell short. I realize he only had 5 losses in high school, but he didn't have a lot of "big wins" either, and all of those losses were to the guys that could test him. His best win in Ohio was McDanel, who beat him the week before at districts. He lost a few times at Ironman, and got thoroughly dominated by Fishback at Fargo, and then watched Fishback win his weight class at Ironman a few months later. He had more losses his senior year than any other year. Not the best trajectory.
As for the start of his RS year, its true that he beat a former AA from Rutgers, but that AA was during the COVID year. I don't really think that win is as huge as it appears. Very good win, but its not an elite win imo. He had close wins over a couple of unheralded guys, one of which was a 3-2 win over a guy who never placed at Ohio High School State, who has a losing college record at Cleveland State, and another 3-1 decision over a non-starter for Northwestern with a career college record of 8-18. Throw in the fact that Geog dominated him in a 6-1 win, and its not going as well as that 7-1 record you threw out there suggests. He has a long way to go to be a competitive Big Ten starter.
Again, this is just my opinion, I never claimed to have all the answers or a crystal ball. I am allowed to have an opinion, just like you are allowed to disagree with me. Fortunately for Shumate, my opinion is not the end all be all, and he gets to write his own story. You are right, I will let him develop. It is just my prediction that he will not develop into what you think he will.