Six College Wrestling Storylines To Watch For Over Conference Tournament Weekend

The NCAA Wrestling postseason begins this weekend with conference tournaments, which mark the first step toward qualifying for the national tournament and, ultimately, competing for a national championship.

Each year, conference tournaments across the country produce unexpected results or storylines that shake up the eventual NCAA Tournament, which this year is being held from March 19-21 at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland.

This year should be no different, as wrestlers from across the country toe the line, either looking to qualify for the NCAA Tournament or, in the case of some, lock up a high seed.

In this piece, we’ll dive into some of college wrestling’s biggest storylines to watch across the country this weekend.

1) Will The Big Ten’s Bizarre Seeding Come Back To Bite It?

Earlier this week, we wrote about the Big Ten’s controversial preseeds for this weekend’s tournament, which had both fans and coaches up in arms. Now, those seeds could change slightly during Friday’s coaches meeting, which allows for appeals of certain seeds.

However, they won’t change much.

The issue is not just that the seeding could cause bizarre matchups early on in the Big Ten Tournament, but also that the results of those matches could harm the Big Ten in the long-term. Results in conference tournaments play a big part in NCAA Tournament seeding, and because of the Big Ten’s strange seeding of its own tournament, the confernece could see some of its star wrestlers dinged a bit when it comes time to seed the national tournament.

2) Can Lucas Byrd Remain Atop The Heap At 133?

The 133-pound weight class isn’t just the best in the country this season; it’s one of the best in recent history. Most of the talk lies with an absolutely loaded class of freshmen, both true and redshirt, that includes Penn State’s Marcus Blaze, Ohio State’s Ben Davino, Oklahoma State’s Jax Forrest, and Virginia Tech’s Aaron Seidel.

However, the No. 1-ranked wrestler in the country according to Intermat is Illinois’ Lucas Byrd. The senior is the reigning NCAA champion at the weight and is undefeated this season.

The problem, however, is that Byrd has not wrestled any other top-five-ranked opponents this season due to the way his schedule shook out. That meant that Blaze grabbed the top seed at Big Tens, while Byrd is the two seed, opposite of Davino.

Still, if Byrd can manage to run through the Big Ten Tournament, beating Davino and Blaze along the way, he’d send quite the message to the rest of the country that he’s not just going to cede his spot to the young guns.

3) Can Anyone Last A Full Seven Minutes With Jax Forrest At Big 12s

The aforementioned Jax Forrest, a true freshman, is the absolute talk of the college wrestling world these days after enrolling at Oklahoma State in January, something unseen before in college wrestling.

Forrest is 9-0 thus far in his college career, and most recently picked up a stunning 19-3 tech fall over Iowa’s Drake Ayala, who reached the NCAA finals each of the prior two seasons.

Only one opponent, the aforementioned Aaron Seidel, has gone all three periods with Forrest, losing a wild 10-9 match.

Forrest’s biggest competition at Big 12s was expected to be Iowa State’s Evan Frost, who is ranked fourth in the country. However, the Cyclones announced on Friday that Frost would not compete in the postseason. That bumps Arizona State’s Kyler Larkin, another freshman who is 16-1 and ranked sixth in the country, up to the No. 2 seed.

Perhaps Larkin can give Forrest a competitive match. But it’s hard to see anyone else in the conference lasting a full seven minutes with the superstar freshman.

4) How Will The 157-Pound Weight Class Shake Out Across The Country

Behind 133, the 157-pound weight class is seemingly the most loaded in the country, also thanks to some star freshmen in Penn State’s PJ Duke and Oklahoma State’s Landon Robideau.

Meanwhile, Nebraska’s Antrell Taylor, the defending national champion, is the top seed in the Big Ten. Taylor took a couple of losses back in November at the National Duals Invitational, including one to Ohio State’s sophomore Brandon Cannon, who is now ranked No. 1 in the country but seeded seventh in the Big Ten Tournament after missing time due to injury.

Since then, however, Taylor has been perfect and enters the postseason at 20-2.

Those three, as well as Illinois’ Kannon Webster, are set to battle it out in the Big Ten. Meanwhile, Robideau will have to ward off Arizona State’s Kaleb Larkin, Iowa State’s Vinny Zerban, and West Virginia’s Ty Watters if he wants to take home a Big 12 title.

Throw in Cornell’s Meyer Shapiro in the Ivy League and Stanford’s Daniel Cardenas in the ACC, and you have an absolutely loaded weight class with a lot of moving parts.

5) Can Anyone Knock Off Penn State Or Oklahoma State?

The Penn State Nittany Lions, under head coach Cael Sanderson, are the predominant power in the college wrestling world, having won 12 of the last 14 national championships.

However, they’ve won “only” nine Big Ten championships in that time frame, with the size of the brackets and the competitive nature from round one leading some to declare winning a Big Ten title harder than an NCAA title.

The Nittany Lions have won the last three conference crowns, though, and it’ll take some doing if a team is going to prevent them from making it four in a row this week, especially in their home arena.

As for the Cowboys, who are led by second-year head coach David Taylor, a Penn State product and Sanderson protege, they’re the program on the rise these days thanks to Forrest and an impressive cast of fellow freshmen.

Oklahoma State, whose 34 national championships are the most all-time in the sport, is the defending Big 12 champion and the heavy favorite to go back-to-back.

Like the Nittany Lions, it’ll take a monumental effort to knock the Cowboys from their perch.

6) Will NC State Or Virginia Tech Prevail In Their Ongoing ACC Rivalry?

While the Big Ten and Big 12 are considered the top wrestling conferences in the country, the ACC has made impressive strides in the last decade, primarily due to Virginia Tech and North Carolina State, which have become perennial top-10 programs.

The Hokies and Wolfpack rivalry has been perhaps the best in the sport in recent years, with their dual meets often decided by one match and the teams trading off ACC titles.

NC State has the edge in that department, having won seven of the last 10, compared to three for Virginia Tech. But the Hokies claimed the conference crown last season.

If seeds were to hold this year in the ACC Tournament, the teams would likely be battling it for the conference championship into the finals and perhaps even the last few matches of the finals.