For the wrestling experts, I am not one, how much have we closed the gap
on Penn State with our recent wrestling success?
7 Replies
1mo
Individual Champions:125 lbs: Luke Lilledahl — No. 1 seed, finished the season 25-0.165 lbs: Mitchell Mesenbrink — No. 1 seed, finished 27-0 and was named the NCAA Championship Outstanding Wrestler.174 lbs: Levi Haines — No. 1 seed, finished 26-0.197 lbs: Josh Barr — No. 1 seed, finished 24-0.Other All-Americans and Tournament Finalists:133 lbs: Marcus Blaze — No. 3 seed, National Runner-up.184 lbs: Rocco Welsh — No. 1 seed, National Runner-up.141 lbs: Braeden Davis — No. 14 seed.149 lbs: Shayne Van Ness — No. 1 seed.157 lbs: PJ Duke — No. 1 seed, finished 3rd and won the Gorriaran Award.285 lbs: Cole Mirasola — No. 9 seed.
(In response to this post by Bwaterhokie)
1mo
2nd, 3rd, 2-5th, 6th, 7th and 8th. Can we do that or better this year and make podium? Yes, but it won't be easy. Let's just see how the upper weights do this year. Think they will be the key.
(In response to this post by UTPr0sim)
1mo
Seidel, Bo and Henson are all top 4 minimum, and I would bet we get 1 or 2 champs and 2 or 3 finalists out of those 3, with a ton of bonus points too.
I am very confident that Burton, Noah, Gaj, and Eddie are AA caliber. I am not confident that Gaj will AA, just based on how insanely deep 157 is, and we obviously saw that **** happens with Eddie, but I think this groups gives 2 or 3 more AAs, with potentially some high finishes. I still think Eddie can beat any 125 in the country.
184 and up is once again a question mark, but we have a lot of options at 184, and Sasso and Mullen have shown some opposite. I'm hopeful to get an AA out of this group, and expect we'll score points at every weight.
That's 5-7 AAs compared to 7 for Iowa, but a ton of points from our top 3 gives us a leg up imo.
(In response to this post by 1979HOKIERED)
1mo
I'm curious how he will impact recruiting in a couple of years. The younger wrestlers really look up to him.
(In response to this post by Bwaterhokie)
1mo
With the 2027 commits, and young talent training here. I think Bo committing and the success our last freshmen class is having is really changing the perception of our program.
(In response to this post by Hokie havoc)
1mo
VT has 4 legit title contenders next year (normally we’d have 1 maybe 2 if we were lucky)
PSU probably has 8-9
So we’ve closed the gap but still far away
** Edited by hoftyhoff at 6/10/2026, 2:46:11 PM
** Edited by hoftyhoff at 6/10/2026, 2:47:46 PM
(In response to this post by Bwaterhokie)