Five Takeaways from the 2024 Collegiate Duals
This weekend marked the fourth edition of Journeymen’s Collegiate Duals. As has been the case in the past, Journeymen rounded up a high-quality set of teams and put them together to battle in one of the marquee events of the college wrestling season.
The 2024 version of the Collegiate Duals featured a mixed bag of results. Maybe if you’re a Penn State fan, you liked the show of force against two ranked teams. If you’re not, then you didn’t get anything resembling a nail-biter. On one end of things, we saw one of the best possible individual matchups of the year, but also saw a few duals that weren’t as good as they could have been due to injuries.
So, here are our five takeaways from the 2024 Collegiate Duals.
Keegan O’Toole Solidifies #1 Ranking
One of the most anticipated matches of the year went down last night in the final round of day two at the Collegiate Duals as the top two 174 lbers in the country clashed. Keegan O’Toole retained his number-one ranking by holding off Levi Haines in overtime during a battle between two past national champions.
The match itself was very tactical throughout the first seven minutes. Both wrestlers were hesitant to take a committed attack and we only saw escapes on the board after three periods of wrestling.
The action picked up in the two-minute sudden victory period. Approximately :15 seconds into the period, Haines looked for a high crotch to a dump, but wasn’t able to stun O’Toole, who then countered with a shot of his own. That led to a prolonged scramble with saw both wrestlers nearly finish the winning takedown.
Late in that sequence, Haines was behind O’Toole, but up around his shoulders, rather than at his waist. O’Toole still had one of Haines’ arms tied up and eventually squirmed out from the position, covered Haines’ legs, and locked up the winning takedown.
The sequence was reviewed by the official and the original call was upheld and O’Toole was declared the winner.
From a big-picture standpoint, I imagine the wrestling community would love to see round two between these national champions. I know I would.
Also, looking beyond the one match, we have undefeated Vegas champion Dean Hamiti of Oklahoma State in the mix. Does he hop over Haines in the rankings? How does he impact a potential rematch? Hamiti and O’Toole are slated to meet in dual competition (February 2nd) and would likely face each other at the Big 12 Championships. O’Toole and Hamiti have not faced each other in an official collegiate bout; however, they did meet at the 2022 NWCA All-Star Classic and O’Toole prevailed, 7-1.
We have plenty of time between now and the NCAA Tournament, but the upcoming matches between O’Toole and Hamiti will go a long way in determining NCAA seeds. Someone will have the one seed - while the other two will have battled it out in the bottom half of the bracket, just to make the national finals.
But for now, O’Toole is the number one 174 lber in the land. Before Sunday, I’m sure some felt Haines should be ranked first because of his win over the Tiger great in freestyle this fall, or because of his unbeaten 2023-24 season at 157 lbs. Those discussions can be tabled for now.
At the same time, if Haines were to defeat O’Toole in Philly, I don’t know if anyone would be shocked.
Penn State Goes 29-1
Sunday saw Penn State wrestle in three duals - two of which came against teams currently ranked in the top-16 nationally. Of the 30 bouts in those three duals, the Nittany Lions only suffered one loss! Of course, it was the aforementioned bout between Levi Haines and Keegan O’Toole - not even an upset, just a loss to one of the top pound-for-pound wrestlers in the nation.
When the new set of national rankings comes out tomorrow, they might feature a Penn State wrestler in the top five at nine of the ten weights. Two wrestlers who earned a bump in the rankings on Sunday include Braeden Davis at 133 lbs and Josh Barr at 197 lbs. Both picked up wins over returning All-Americans during their dual with Little Rock.
The Barr win was something that many saw coming after his stunning major decision win over two-time All-American Michael Beard of Lehigh. Davis we weren’t sure about up at a new weight and without having faced any of the top contenders at 133 lbs. That changed as he eked out a 1-0 win over returning NCAA fourth-place finisher Nasir Bailey.
The only PSU wrestler who is on pace to be outside of the top five on Tuesday morning is 125 lber Luke Lilledahl. The same Lilledahl was the new one overall recruit in the Class of 2024 and a U17 and U20 world champion. By the luck of the draw, Lilledahl hasn’t faced any of the elite 125 lbers to prove he’s deserving of a top-five ranking. He’s passed every test otherwise and has the pedigree, so it almost seems inevitable that he’ll climb into contender status soon.
Last year, we threw around the “will they, won’t they” argument relating to matching Minnesota’s legendary 2001 team that featured an All-American at all ten weights. They ended up missing out with “only” two starters finishing outside of the top eight in Kansas City. With nine likely in the top five before New Year’s Day and the bluest of the blue-chip recruits also in the mix, it will be a topic that comes up sooner rather than later.
From the team aspect, I asked some friends Sunday night “How many teams could legitimately claim to win two or more matches against Penn State.” Iowa, Nebraska, Little Rock (still lost two close ones), Oklahoma State, Minnesota, Ohio State, and Missouri. Maybe others are capable of it and they do have to wrestle matches on the mat and not paper - but just the thought of that question is kind of ridiculous. We’re not asking, “Can they beat Penn State?” It's merely who is capable of winning two of ten individual matches. Crazy.
Kharchla’s Back and 3-0
A potentially overlooked storyline from the weekend was the season debut of Carson Kharchla. The 2022 All-American was lost for the year last season - right around this time. A few weeks ago, we heard that the Ohio State staff was pointing toward Nashville as a potential spot for Kharchla’s return, but you never know how those things work and the potential setbacks that may arise.
Well, Nashville was accurate and Kharchla looked fine for being away from competition for just over a year. In fact, the best sign may have been that the Ohio State staff was comfortable enough to send him out for all three duals. With tread on Kharchla’s tires and his injury history, I’m sure the Buckeye staff would have reigned him in at the first sign of a tweak - and they would be justified in doing so.
That didn’t happen and Kharchla picked up three solid wins. His return coincided with a veteran from North Carolina making his season debut, as well, when he defeated Josh Ogunsanya 10-3. Two years ago, the pair met and Kharchla won 6-3. During his other two bouts, Kharchla did what you’d expect. A tech fall win over James Lledo of Lock Haven and an 8-4 victory against Iowa State’s Aiden Riggins.
None of these results or even the “eyeball” test suggest that Kharchla is ready to break into the O’Toole/Haines/Hamiti triumvirate at the top of the 174 lb weight class, however, after the “big three” this weight class seems very wide open. A healthy Kharchla could establish himself as a strong podium finisher (maybe more) in the coming months.
More Lineup Craziness (Mizzou/Iowa State)
We mentioned it in our preview, but to reiterate - seeing Little Rock/Penn State versus Missouri or Ohio State/North Carolina against Iowa State over the summer seemed like some of the juiciest non-conference duals of the year. We in the media and the wrestling fanbase can get annoyed when big matches don’t happen or top teams avoid each other. In this instance, the coaches and event organizers did it right and set up some high-quality potential duals.
Unfortunately, stuff happened. Both Iowa State and Missouri have been hit hard by injuries during the first two months of the season. Both teams were a shell of their ideal selves.
Missouri lost their veteran 125 lber to a retirement (Noah Surtin) from various injuries (though they do have a promising freshman - Gage Walker) and four-time All-American Rocky Elam has yet to wrestle a match in 2024-25. Heavyweight Seth Nitzel wasn’t available. Promising 165 lber Cam Steed was banged up in the Illinois dual and returned Sunday only to get knocked out cold in his first match back. Their ideal 149 lber Logan Gioffre may be moving up to 157 lbs. It’s just one of those years for Mizzou.
With O’Toole in the mix for another title and hopefully Elam and some combination of Josh Edmond/Steed/Colton Hawks threatening the NCAA podium, I think Missouri will seem normal at the NCAA Tournament, but until then, things could be rough.
Iowa State has been trying to get their weight classes right all year. The return of Cody Chittum from a potential redshirt signals that Anthony Echemendia and Paniro Johnson bumping down is in the works. MJ Gaitan moved down to 165, but will move back to 174. Yonger Bastida could be a high finisher at 285 lbs, but an injury has put his season in jeopardy. Even though he wrestled one match Saturday, that’s still the case. In addition to the weight change, Echemendia was said to be out of the lineup due to an injury.
A bit of good news for the Cyclones was getting veteran Kysen Terukina back at 125 lbs. Terukina won both of his matches on Saturday and his presence could allow Adrian Meza to be kept in redshirt.
Similar to Mizzou, if all things come together for Iowa State, as planned, they could be in the NCAA trophy hunt again in Philly. For the Cyclones, I’ll have to wait and see it as there’s a lot of movement that needs to take place before then.
The Stream
In articles like this over the years, I’ve criticized FloWrestling for streaming/broadcast issues. The Collegiate Duals were streamed on Rokfin - just as they have for the last four years. Unlike the previous three editions, this year's broadcast had some serious issues.
For full disclosure, InterMat has a presence on Rokfin. That’s no secret.
Saturday’s portion of the event got off to a rocky start and people had difficulty accessing the stream on time and, as a result, might have missed the first match of the first round of duals. After that, it seemed like Saturday was good.
Sunday, on the other hand, viewers had similar issues where they ended up missing the first half of the first round of duals. To their credit, the Rokfin staff put the dual up for free on the Rokfin YouTube page. Obviously, the damage had been done. You don’t tune into a football game and miss the entire first quarter. There was also some confusion as the second round of duals started on the YouTube stream and then moved over to Rokfin and, at a later point, the YouTube stream was revived.
There’s no way around it. It was very messy for fans and not a good look. In addition to the other schools that participated, Penn State has a massive fan base and plenty of popular wrestlers, so an issue with their stream is only going to get magnified.
I don’t know the actual issues surrounding the stream, but what I do know is that there will be trust that needs to be rebuilt from Rokfin to wrestling fans. To FloWrestling’s credit, they stream a lot(!) of wrestling events. There are issues from time-to-time, but they probably take an inordinate amount of heat for those past streaming problems, many of which are years old, at this point. But it goes to show you that an issue with one event can create lasting negative impressions about your company.
With that in mind, there are a handful of wrestling pages across Rokfin that stream wrestling events. I hope that fans give Rokfin a chance, as this hasn’t been the case with other broadcasts I’ve seen and the first three Collegiate Duals from Journeymen.
For those doing the streaming, it’s a reminder to double and triple-check everything possible on your end to provide a professional broadcast. I’ve heard “the internet is really bad in this building” before (I don’t know if that was the case in Nashville). It seems like that’s a recipe for disaster if you’re planning on streaming a live event from a building with bad internet. Along with checking streaming, for the actual presentation, look at your wrestler’s names/school names/logos. Want to annoy someone quickly? Spell their son or daughter’s name wrong.
I think all of us in the wrestling community wish that wrestling was more mainstream and we didn’t have to rely on online viewing for 95% of our wrestling action. But, if we can’t get streaming down, I don’t know how we can prove to the outside world that our sport is worth investing time and money.
I normally have a better way of wrapping these articles up, but I’ll just say that I hope we can get streaming issues smoothed out in our sport and that I hope fans don’t completely eliminate Rokfin as an option in the future.
