NC State 157 lber Ed Scott (photo courtesy of Sam Janicki; SJanickiPhoto.com)To steal the line from last year's FCW Top-20 Articles, everyone knows 125 Pat Glory, 133 Roman Bravo-Young, 174 Carter Starocci, 184 Aaron Brooks, and 285 Gable Steveson are bonus point monsters, and this season they totaled 283 Fpts. Top names and all NCAA Champions or Finalists (Nick Suriano did not make the Top-20).
But here's five names that totaled 328 Fpts: 125 Caleb Smith (APP), 133 Joshua Koderhandt (NAVY), 174 Logan Messer (GMU), 184 Jonathan Loew (COR), and 285 Ben Goldin (PENN). This group only has one All-American (Loew finishing 8th).
And as I say every year, that's the beauty and frustration of Fantasy Sports. Sometimes your top performers are not "household names."
So, with that, let's take a look at this past season's Top-20 at each weight to help give you an early start to win each week this coming year.
To compile these lists, we used standard WrestleStat Fantasy College Wrestling Data & Scoring. Just a reminder of how points were tallied in WrestleStat leagues:
1) The scoring used was Standard Team Scoring across all competitions (+3 for a win by decision, -4 for a loss by Major, etc)
2) Scoring only counted against D1 competition
3) Wins via Forfeits (FFT) would count as +6 towards a wrestler's point total
4) Wins or Losses by Medical Forfeit (MFF) did not count as + or - towards a wrestler's point total
5) Points were only accumulated during the regular season
Notes:
The top three placeholders at 157 this year were not All-Americans, which only happened in one other weight this season in these Fantasy Ranks (more on that later).
Ed Scott finished as the #1 Fantasy Wrestler at 157, after going 6-6 at 149 last season. The wrestling world really took notice after a headlock to Kaleb Young at the National Collegiate Duals (in what I think was the dual of the year). Scott fell in the bloodround due to a highly controversial pin call, but I would call it a very productive and successful season. Especially from a Fantasy standpoint where he had an ADP of 157.25 and finished as the #9 Fantasy Wrestler overall this season.
Falling just short of the top spot was Chase Saldate and Andrew Cerniglia. For Saldate, his losses are not that surprising (Ryan Deakin, Jared Franek, Kendall Coleman, and Will Lewan), aside from maybe the loss to Jordan Slivka, who he had pinned earlier in the season (Slivka was the #6 wrestler, by the way). Had he won that rematch, Saldate would have been #1 at 157.
National Champion Ryan Deakin wrestled only 10 matches in the regular season, which equated to CKLV and five dual meets and is tied with Gable Steveson for the least amount of matches wrestled to make a Top-20 this season. National Finalist Quincy Monday, on the other hand, wrestled almost double the number of matches and finished at #8.
For some reason, I don't know why, Austin O'Connor seemed off and not as dominant as his 2021 and even 2020 self at 149. But if you look at the numbers, he finished with four pins, three techs, two majors, one DQ, and only one loss (against D1 competition). A pretty dominant regular season which got him the #5 spot. Slightly more dominant this season was David Carr, who had the same number of regular season matched (17), but finished seven Fpts more to finish #4 at 157.
Brayton Lee isn't listed as the starter for Minnesota, due to a late-season injury which was one of his two losses on the season. Lee had put together a bonus rate of 36.8% before having the injury, which set him back -6 in Fpts. Had Lee won that match by decision, he would have had 54 Fpt and been the #10 Fantasy Wrestler at 157 this year.
Jon Errico, a transfer from U Penn, started for the ‘Hoos in a handful of matches but edged out Doug Zapf by 0.3 in PPM to round out the Top-20.
Five of the Eight All-Americans made the 157 Top-20 list.
Who Missed The Cut:
The three All-Americans to miss the cut were Will Lewan of Michigan (finished #25 with 30 Fpts), Hunter Willits of Oregon State (finished #33 with 23 Fpts), and Peyton Robb of Nebraska (Finished #63 with 13 Fpts). Robb moved down from his stint at 165 last season and took out Austin O'Connor in mid-November, putting the wrestling world on notice. He had some close losses with Carr and Lewan, but without even a modest bonus rate (17.6%), Robb, unfortunately, could not overcome his 6 losses (all by Decisions, at least).
Paddy Gallagher (OHST) was the #1 recruit in the 2021 class (via MatScouts) and was six points away from breaking into the Top-20. Of his 20 wrestled matches, only seven of those were not against D1 Competition and would have added another 29 Fpts (would have made him #4 at 157 had they counted).
While he wrestled 15 matches against D1 competition, Kaleb Young (IOWA) only recorded two wins by bonus (tech and major) but suffered five losses, including two by bonus (pin and major). He finished as the #56 Fantasy Wrestler. Similarly, Kendall Coleman (PUR) finished with 20 D1 matches, but of his four countable losses (four were by medical forfeits so they don't technically count), three were by pin. Both finished with a PPM less than 0.08 (at least they were within the legal limit to drive! ba-dum-tiss!)
Last Year's #1 Fantasy Wrestler at 157 was Jacob Wright (WYO). The Cowboy unfortunately did not repeat his Top-20 finish. This year, a string of losses in mid to late January put him in a -10 Fpt hole which landed him at the #36 spot at 157.
Other notables to miss the cut include Doug Zapf (PENN) at #21 with 41 Fpts (missed out on the #20 spot by 0.3 PPM), Jarrett Jacques (MIZZ) at #30 with 27 Fpts, Jake Keating (UVA) at #26 with 25 Fpts, Wyatt Sheets (OKST) at #44 with 17 Fpts, and Brady Berge (PSU) at #59 with 13 Fpts.
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