Manheim, Pennsylvania – For the third straight year, Penn State will start the college wrestling season ranked No. 1 in the country.
The Nittany Lions garnered all 16 first-place votes as the season's first poll was released by the National Wrestling Coaches Association on Wednesday. Penn State won its third straight national championship and 12th overall last March, setting a new NCAA tournament scoring mark in the process with 172.5 points and outdistancing runner-up Cornell by an unprecedented 100 points.
Coach Cael Sanderson's team is also riding a dual meet win streak of 55 in a row, which currently sits as the 13th longest all-time in college wrestling history and the sixth-longest in major college history.
Iowa starts the year ranked second after finishing the regular season 12-2 in duals and fifth at the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships. The Hawkeyes are followed by Oklahoma State, Nebraska and Ohio State in the top five.
Oklahoma State went 14-1 last season and for the first time in nearly 30 years, will be led by a new head coach. World and Olympic champion David Taylor assumed the role over the summer as the Cowboys' head coach and brings a new feeling of excitement to Stillwater. The Cowboys finished a disappointing 10th at last season's NCAA championships.
Nebraska went 12-2 in duals and finished ninth at the NCAA championships, while the Buckeyes were 15-2 in duals and finished eighth. The Big Ten, as usual, has an abundance of teams ranked in the Top 25, with eight of the conference's 14 wrestling schools starting the year in the poll, including four in the top five. Michigan (8-4 in 2023-24) gives the Big Ten a fifth team in the Top 10, coming in at No. 10.
While the Big Ten was unaffected on the wrestling side of things by the continuing world of college realignment, other conferences find themselves with changing membership.
Oklahoma State is one of eight Big 12 teams ranked in the Top 25 to start the season, with newcomer Arizona State adding to the list of usual suspects. Iowa State (13-2) and Missouri (10-4) come in ranked sixth and ninth, respectively.
The ACC boasts five schools ranked – including rivals Virginia Tech (9-4) and NC State (16-2) coming in ranked No. 7 and No. 8 to start the year. Geographical outlier Stanford joins the conference and starts the year ranked No. 21.
This will be the first year the Ivy League sanctions a qualifying tournament for the postseason with six of its eight wrestling members formally aligning, led by No. 11 Cornell (12-4). The EIWA, which currently has a lineup of 12 squads, has one school ranked – Lehigh (7-4) at No. 16.
With just four teams in the Pac-12 this season, the conference will still function as a postseason qualifier. Upstart Little Rock (15-5) turned heads last season with its first two All-Americans in school history and a Top 20 finish at the NCAA championships. Head Coach Neil Erisman hauled in a number of national Coach of the Year honors in the process. The Trojans are one of two schools in the Pac-12 ranked, starting the year at No. 20, while Oregon State (7-5) begins the year ranked No. 23.
Methodology: The NWCA Division I Wrestling Coaches Poll is voted on by two coaches from each Division I wrestling conference. Each first-place vote is worth 25 points, 24 points for a second-place vote, 23 for a third-place vote and so on through to one point for a 25th-place vote. The poll is based on dual meet results.
NWCA Division I Men's Wrestling Coaches Poll
Preseason - October 30, 2024
Others Receiving Votes: Campbell 16, Army West Point 11, Wyoming 11, Cal Poly 9, Indiana 8, Navy 8, Lock Haven 7, Penn 7, Northern Colorado 5, Northwestern 5, Maryland 4, Ohio 3, Wisconsin 1.
