The 2025 NCAA Championships Were Overflowing with Storylines

I waited a couple of days to write this article. I wanted to write it when I got home from Philadelphia and the 2025 NCAA Championships, but I needed some time for perspective. Personally, I’m not a fan of labeling the match or tournament or upset we saw last night as the “Greatest Ever.” Ever is a long time and frankly, even though I’ve covered 17 of the last 19 NCAA Tournaments, I’ve missed much more than I’ve ever seen when it comes to the history of college wrestling. 

What that means is that it’s not hyperbole when I say the 2025 NCAA Championships had the best and greatest number of storylines surrounding the tournament of any that I’ve been associated with. 

Some were blatant and obvious - others you had to pay attention to notice. Quite frankly, there were so many that you might have missed one or seven. 

Let’s go through some of the main ones we knew before the tournament. 

• Carter Starocci’s quest for five titles. He did it and became the first NCAA wrestler to achieve the feat and beat an undefeated returning champion in the process. 

• Could Penn State break their own scoring record - established a year ago - along with matching Minnesota’s highwater mark of 10 All-Americans? Yes and yes to both. Then Nittany Lions were also the first team since 1992 to put their entire lineup in the NCAA quarterfinals. 

• Can Iowa hold onto second place and what’s Jacori Teemer’s status? Teemer went 0-2 and Kyle Parco was injured in his second match and didn’t wrestle in the consolations. Aside from that, Iowa had an alright tournament - capped off by a win at 197 lbs from Stephen Buchanan. They finished fourth as a team. 

• Is Oklahoma State the next team ready to challenge Penn State? I suppose that depends on what you call “challenge,” but the Cowboys had a very good tournament, finishing third and crowning two champions in year one under David Taylor. 

• A final send-off for Olympic gold medalist Gable Steveson. We’ll get to that later. 

• How will AJ Ferrari fare against the Big Ten (and others)? This was kind of a dud. Ferrari fell in a semifinal bout where Buchanan was better at the areas where Ferrari is normally good (defense, riding, match management). He won a close bout over Big Ten champion Jacob Cardenas for third place at 197 lbs. Neither of those matches would likely be noted as memorable. 

• Will Tyler Brennan be able to wrestle? We finally got the answer at about 2pm on Wednesday before the tournament started. Brennan was ruled ineligible and Rider’s Michael Wilson took his place in the bracket. 

Here are some storylines that emerged as the tournament progressed: 

Nebraska coming to play at nationals! For a few years now, Nebraska has had a team that, on paper, appeared like it could challenge for a team trophy or perhaps the #2 spot behind Penn State. For whatever reason, that never materialized. In Philly, it all came together. Mark Manning’s team put together a tournament that would have won plenty of previous years with 117 points, two champions, and eight All-Americans. The runner-up finish, the 117 points, and the AA total are all program records. Nebraska hadn’t crowned a national champion since Jordan Burroughs in 2011 (in that same Wells Fargo Center) and hadn’t had two champs since 1984. 

Stout vs. Stout. As you filled out your brackets, you might have figured out that the Stout brothers were set to clash in the Round of 16 - of course, that was dependent on both wrestlers advancing, which is something you can’t take for granted in a tournament of this magnitude. Both won their first-round matches and they tangled for a spot in the quarterfinals. Little brother, Mac, defeated his older brother, Luke, and ended up earning a place on the NCAA podium. It is thought to be the only time that brothers have ever faced each other at the DI tournament. It must have been such an intense, nerve-racking,  yet proud, moment for the Stout family.  

Ex-teammates in the bloodround. With the proliferation of transfers, we’re bound to have some weird types of matchups at the NCAA Tournament. That’s what happened in the bloodround as former Oklahoma State teammates Sammy Alvarez and Jordan Williams met for All-American honors at 149 lbs. A weight class later, former Michigan State teammates Caleb Fish and Chase Saldate clashed. The bloodround is a crazy enough experience, but wrestling against a former partner/friend/teammate takes it to another level. 

In conjunction with that, we had a pair of ex-teammates wrestling in the consolation semifinals with Isaac Trumble and Owen Trephan. Trephan left NC State at the end of the fall semester to finish his career at Lehigh and thrived - earning the #4 seed in Philly. Not only were he and Trumble teammates, but also roommates and members of the ROTC program at NC State. 

A possible connection I noticed at 157 lbs was when Vince Zerban downed Brandon Cannon 11-6 in the bloodround. Zerban wrestles for Northern Colorado and Cannon is from the Denver area. The way the pair interacted after the final whistle indicated there was probably some sort of relationship between the two. 

One unfortunate takeaway from the bloodround was another loss by Cornell’s Julian Ramirez. It was his fourth bloodround loss! During the last three, he entered the NCAA Tournament as a top-five seed. At one point, during his 16-12 loss to Hunter Garvin, Ramirez had the Stanford wrestler on his back looking for a fall. Ramirez is perhaps the best wrestler I’ve seen in my time covering the sport that did not earn All-American status. 

We mentioned Ferrari earlier, in his third-place match, he downed Big Ten champion Jacob Cardenas, who was briefly his teammate at New Jersey’s Bergen Catholic High School. 

Familiarity in the NCAA finals. Nine of the ten NCAA finals matches featured opponents who had already met at least once during the 2024-25 season. In some instances, those types of matches can be boring because of the familiarity or if one guy dominates the rivalry. A positive in these instances is the built-in storyline. “Can Wrestler A get revenge” “Who makes the adjustments from match to match?” Overall, I think this aspect helped for fans more than hurt. 

The only match without a prior 2024-25 meeting. Heavyweight, which was loaded with storylines in its own right. We saw Gable Steveson leave his shoes on the mat in Detroit. Could he come back and turn in another perfect season and perhaps win a third Hodge Trophy? And in the main event of the evening? 

Wyatt Hendrickson had other plans and a storyline or two of his own. Hendrickson came out to the mat wrapped in the American flag, a gesture that likely resonated with President Donald Trump, who was sitting matside and was the first sitting president to attend the NCAA Championships. The Air Force graduate jogged by the Olympic champion in a manner that signified he wasn’t scared and it was “his mat.” 

A few minutes later, it was indeed Hendrickson’s mat. He worked hard to finish a takedown attempt and was able to keep Steveson from a match-tying escape in the waning seconds of the bout. As the final seconds ticked off the clock, the crowd realized it was witnessing something special. One of the greatest upsets in the history of our sport. They reacted in a manner that nearly blew the roof off of Wells Fargo Arena. 

After Hendrickson’s initial celebration, he turned to the Commander-in-Chief and gave a salute. It was an ending straight out of a Disney movie. 

Philly, you were great. The NCAA wrestling championships once again demonstrated why it’s the best three days of action in sports - and that’s no hyperbole.