Cael Sanderson's contract as Penn State's head wrestling coach is supposed to expire at the end of June and it appears it will do just that.

University athletic director Sandy Barbour wasn't explicit about the overall status of the contract or ongoing negotiations. She did express hope that Sanderson and his coaching staff of Cody Sanderson, Casey Cunningham and Jake Varner will have a long tenure at Penn State. Attempts to secure additional information were unsuccessful on Friday.

"Coach Sanderson and his staff have done an incredible job with our wrestling student-athletes since arriving at Penn State and it is our hope that they will be here for a very long time,'' Barbour told Pennlive.com on Friday.

"While we do not discuss contract details in sports other than football and basketball, keeping Cael in Happy Valley is important to us and we will continue to work diligently to ensure this is the case."

Sanderson signed a five-year contract extension in August 2012 under athletic director Dave Joyner at a salary of $175,000; that did not include performance bonuses for winning conference and NCAA championships. Penn State has won six of the last seven NCAA titles under Sanderson and five of the past seven Big Ten crowns.

He said in March that he was ready to sign but that a few things had to be worked out within the infrastructure of the program.

Sanderson has compiled a 112-14 record at Penn State since his first season in 2009-10; the Nittany Lions won their first NCAA championship under Sanderson in 2011.

Sanderson said in 2012 that "it's a good feeling when your boss comes to you and says he likes the job you're doing and wants you to stay." He also added that State College feels like home and is a place he could see himself living for quite a while.

Which is what Penn State fans want to hear. And while many wrestling coaches at smaller schools don't eclipse the $100,000 mark, or at least get far past it, Iowa State set the bar a big higher this year when it gave Virginia Tech coach Kevin Dresser a contract worth $300,000 per year to take over the Cyclones' struggling program.

Whether that means negotiations are ongoing about heftier contracts for Sanderson's assistants as well as a few more bells and whistles in the Lorenzo Wrestling Complex remains to be seen, but suffice it to say that his fan base will say that Sanderson should get what Sanderson wants based on performance alone.

Academics are stressed and grade-point averages are low only when compared to the number of takedowns that Penn State wrestlers score but high when viewed side-by-side with other institutions known for scholarly success.

Overall, Sanderson is 156-24-2, which includes three seasons as head coach at this alma mater, Iowa State. Penn State has won 31 straight matches, including 15 straight at either Rec Hall or Bryce Jordan Center. The Lions also have won six championships at prestigious, in-season Southern Scuffle in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Sanderson, who turned 38 on June 20, went on a national recruiting expedition as soon as he landed in his Rec Hall office in 2009 and that has yet to lag, sag or even turn sluggish. Athletes not only want to wrestle for him and for Penn State, elite wrestlers stray after graduation to train with the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club at the Olympic Regional Training Center. Already, six wrestlers ranked among the top 13 nationally in the high school Class of 2018 have committed to attend Penn State.

Sanderson has had 11 wrestlers win 16 NCAA titles in those eight seasons and 10 wrestlers earn 21 Big Ten Conference crowns. He's earned multiple Coach of the Year honors -- conference and nationally - and his athletes have earned 43 All-America medals at Penn State.

Sanderson, of course, was 159-0 and a four-time NCAA champion at Iowa State with three Hodge Trophies to show for it. He was a 2004 Olympic gold medalist and he has his face on a Wheaties box that sports his head with hair on it.

He and his wrestlers preach constantly about having fun and cite how grateful they are to compete.

But Sanderson freely says coaching is not all about winning.

"There's something bigger than winning, I think, and that's kind of more the mind-set,'' he said in his office about 10 days after the 2017 NCAA title in St. Louis.

"We're not like, 'let's go party, we won the nationals.' We kind of expected it, we wanted it, but that doesn't mean it's going to happen. There's that moment when we realized, 'hey, we won the team championship' and we give each other a high-five and a hug and it's,' all right, let's get ready for the finals.'

"That's just kind of our personalities, maybe. We don't do this just to win national titles. That's nice, but there's something bigger, I think,'' Sanderson said.

Perhaps an intangible or two are holding things up in the negotiation process at the moment. Sanderson is not overly forthcoming about personal details but has never shown any reason for fans to think that this delay is anything but temporary.

"We are committed to Cael being the head coach of Nittany Lion wrestling and he, too, is committed to building upon his championship success at Penn State," Barbour said Friday.

WRESTLING NOTES: Theopenmat.com reported this week that the National Duals format has been canceled. The past two seasons the top teams in the Big Ten faced the top-ranked teams from other conferences. Big Ten teams hosted in 2016 and traveled in 2017. Penn State defeated Oklahoma State in the title matches in both seasons. No plans to replace it with another concept have been released. ... Former Penn State wrestler Bryan Pearsall, a Warwick High graduate, has been named assistant coach at the University of Pennsylvania. He coached at Army last season. ... Former Penn State wrestler Kenny Chertow, a three-time All-America and a 1988 Olympian, is head coach at Division II Queens University in Charlotte, North Carolina. The school is launching a new program and Chertow this week announced an initial recruiting class of 19 wrestlers.