[2] The Cougars host their home matches at the Sam M. Vadalabene Center on the university's campus in Edwardsville, Illinois, United States.

Despite these drawbacks, by the time the SIU Board of Trustees authorized the awarding of athletic scholarships in 1973, Kristoff's teams had built a dual meet record of 25–7–2, and two wrestlers had won All-American status.

With the arrival of athletic scholarships, Kristoff's wrestlers won 5 All-American citations and finished in third place at the 1974 NCAA Division II championships.

In his thirty-year career as the Cougars coach, through good years and bad, Kristoff compiled a dual meet record of 210–201–12.

A third season saw some improvement to four wins, but in 2002–03, the Cougars managed a record of only 2–17, and the university administration decreed that the continued futility did not justify the expenses of operating the program, and it would be discontinued.

In spite of eleven consecutive losing seasons, the program had maintained a small, but highly dedicated fan base, which immediately rallied support for Benford and his wrestlers.

The main result was the founding of the Friends of Wrestling organization which has, since that time, raised funding from outside the institution to pay for the program.

After four final seasons as an independent, Ray took SIUE into the Southern Conference in 2012–13[9] before the university tapped him for other duties in the school's administration.

In the 2013–14 season, heavyweight David Devine became SIUE's first individual conference champion and the program's first NCAA qualifier since the school moved to Division I.

[12][13] In winning his first match at the NCAA Finals in St. Louis, Tindle scored SIUE's first championship point as a Division I program.

The Cougars' current head coach is Jeremy Spates, a graduate of the University of Missouri, where he was an All-American in 2004 and was captain of the wrestling team for three years.

[20] Thirteen Cougar wrestlers won nineteen NCAA Individual Championships during the school's Division II years.

NWCA Executive Director Mike Moyer commented, "As you might expect, some of our nation's finest academic institutions, like the Ivy League schools for example, are represented very well, but when you see schools like Eastern Michigan, SIU Edwardsville, and South Dakota State, it goes to show the nation that great educations and great educational resources can be found everywhere.