InterMat's All-Quarter Century Team: NC State

Earlier this week, our All-Quarter Century feature highlighted a Missouri program that really came into its own over the last 25 years. The same can be said for NC State. For the first decade-plus in the 2000’s NC State was a highly competitive team in an ACC that was not at the level that we’ve grown accustomed to. 

All of that changed in 2013 with the hiring of Pat Popolizio. Shortly after Popolizio’s hiring, NC State became a perennial conference championship favorite and, in many cases, a top ten team. 

Since NC State doesn’t have the long, storied history like other teams we’ve featured thus far, their All-Quarter Century teams don’t have quite the depth like others. At the same time, they have seen some superstars and their first team generally matches up with most other programs. 

One big decision here was how to handle the logjam at 133-149. Kevin Jack and Tariq Wilson had relatively similar accomplishments and it was difficult to pick between the two. Since Wilson had two years at 133 lbs, we put him there. The other option for Wilson was at 149 lbs and with NCAA champion Darrion Caldwell in the mix, he probably should get that spot. 

Wrestlers considered for the three teams had to compete from 2001-25. For the wrestlers early in this timeframe, their entire collegiate body of work was considered. Only collegiate results were taken into consideration. Even if a wrestler was successful at multiple weights, they were only selected for one weight - typically it was based on the strongest possible first team.

After the three All-Century teams, there are some fun facts about NC State’s results over the past 25 years.

Here are the programs we’ve already covered

Lehigh

Minnesota

Missouri

NC State

First Team

125 lbs - Vince Robinson*: Chicago, Illinois - 1x AA (1), 2025 NCAA champion, ACC runner-up

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