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With the World Championships behind us, we’re almost solely focused on the upcoming collegiate season. To kick off our collegiate coverage, we’re going to focus on some teams to watch for the 2025-26 season. All of these teams finished outside the top 20 at the 2025 NCAA Championships for various reasons. Some had bad luck with injuries. Some had young teams. Others might have underperformed. Whatever the reason, 2025-26 is a new year. In the current climate of collegiate athletics, it’s much easier to remake a roster in an offseason than ever before. Many teams below took advantage of that. High school wrestlers are also more prepared than ever to win at the collegiate level, so teams might be more apt to depend on positive results from freshmen today, compared to the past. We’ve identified eight teams that are in position to return to the top 20 in 2025-26 and given some reasons why there is optimism about such an improvement this season. Iowa State The Cyclones are the poster team for this feature. They came in at #3 in our first preseason team rankings and in the dual rankings. 2024-25 was kind of an aberration and almost a worst-case scenario for Kevin Dresser’s team. Their potential national champion heavyweight (Yonger Bastida) only participated in two duals before being lost for the year due to injuries. A likely high All-American (Anthony Echemendia) was lost for the year after the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational. Their best 125 lb option missed the bulk of the regular season and wasn’t able to qualify for nationals. In Philly, their All-American 133 lber lost a pair of matches to eventual top-six finishers. The problem this year could be getting everyone in the lineup - really, there isn’t a way for that to happen. An All-American threat will probably sit the bench at 141/149 with Anthony Echemendia, Jacob Frost, and Paniro Johnson vying for two slots. Iowa State added national title threat Rocky Elam at 197 lbs. They now have an All-American and Big 12 champion at 125 lbs in Stevo Poulin. Poulin’s Northern Colorado teammate, Vinny Zerban, is a returning AA and will solidify the 157 lbs spot. 184 lber Isaac Dean will be in the podium hunt. The theme of this exercise is making the top 20 by a team that was outside of it in 2025. Iowa State shouldn’t “just” make the top 20; they should be in NCAA trophy contention. Anything less would be surprising. Pittsburgh The key to NCAA team points is having stars rather than a balanced lineup. Pitt has both, with the star power in the back half of their lineup. Returning All-American Mac Stout started the preseason ranked fifth at 197 lbs. Those are some quality NCAA points to build around. Behind Stout in the lineup is heavyweight Dayton Pitzer. He’s ranked seventh in the nation. Two All-Americans are almost always enough to get into the NCAA top 20. If that’s not enough, Keith Gavin’s team also has a 174 lber in Luca Augustine that starts the preseason ranked 13th. Augustine made the bloodround in 2025 and is certainly capable of taking another step forward in 2025-26. A wild card for Pitt could be their redshirt freshman 149 lber Kade Brown. Brown went 10-3 last year, with two of his three losses coming to All-Americans and the third coming to an All-American caliber wrestler. He posted wins over multi-time qualifiers Malyke Hines (Lehigh) and Andy Clark (Rutgers). Brown starts the year ranked #18 in a weight class that gets pretty thin after the top tier or two. Rutgers 2025 was only the second time since 2016 that Rutgers failed to make the top 20. Scott Goodale’s history shows it’s more likely that the Scarlet Knights will bounce back in 2025-26. Rutgers has a returning All-American and Big Ten champion in their lineup at 133 lbs in Dylan Shawver. Shawver was seventh in the nation in 2024 and came up a match shy of the podium in 2025. He’ll start the year ninth at a pretty loaded weight class. Based on his talent and pedigree, Shawver has the potential to outwrestle that ranking. The second most likely AA for Rutgers comes in Nebraska transfer Lenny Pinto. Pinto is looking to get over the hump after losing in the NCAA bloodround in each of the last two years. A reunion with his former teammate and current Rutgers assistant coach, Mikey Labriola, could help in that effort. Pinto has also finished second and third in the Big Ten in each of the last two years. The new Scarlet Knight is also capable of putting up big points on quality wrestlers. Getting a few bonus points at the national tournament is extremely important when looking at team scores. In addition to the two mentioned above, Rutgers also has Joey Oliveiri (141), Shane Cartagena-Walsh (184), and Virginia Tech transfer Hunter Catka (285), who aren’t very far from the podium either. If all goes well, they could easily be in the top 20. Wisconsin Wisconsin was outside the top 20 last season , but this could be the year they return. They’ll be led by 2025 NCAA semifinalist and fourth-place finisher Zan Fugitt. We’ll see how Fugitt handles wrestling this season with a target on his back, rather than being an overlooked freshman. He starts the year ranked fourth, but with the depth of the 133 lb weight class, he’ll have plenty of challengers looking to knock him down the ladder. In front of Fugitt in the Badger lineup is Nicolar Rivera. The 125 lber had an all-around solid season, finishing fourth in the Big Ten, earning the #11 seed at nationals, and advancing to the NCAA bloodround. He starts the preseason ranked ninth at 125 lbs, so breaking through to become an All-American isn’t a huge stretch of the imagination. A gigantic wild card for the Badgers is Braxton Amos. Amos was injured at the 2023 NCAA Championships and has been out of commission (from a collegiate standpoint) since. Amos is expected to re-emerge as a heavyweight in 2024-25. Taking cutting weight out of the equation will help Amos stay on the mat. We haven’t seen him compete at the collegiate level at 285 lbs and, with the long layoff, it’s hard to make realistic predictions for Amos. If he’s healthy, it’s not hard to imagine Amos being a factor nationally. Wisconsin will also get 149 lber Joey Zargo back from a redshirt year. Zargo is a three-time national qualifier for the Badgers, twice at 141 and once at 149. With a lack of depth at 149, Zargo could quickly establish himself as one of “the guys” at the weight. South Dakota State The Jackrabbits had quietly finished in the top 15 at both the 2023 and 2024 NCAA Championships. With only one All-American in 2025, they missed out on the top 20. SDSU will have an All-American on the roster with Bennett Berge. Berge made the podium in 2024, but missed in 2025. He’ll move up to 197 lbs this year. South Dakota State doesn’t necessarily have one additional guy that’s an All-American lock. However, they have a handful of wrestlers with that type of potential. Derrick Cardinal (133), Julian Tagg (141), Alek Martin (149), Cael Swensen (157), and Drake Rhodes (165). You have to take into account the way the SDSU staff develops and gets the most out of their wrestlers. Based on their track record, a couple of those wrestlers will threaten for All-American status. Oklahoma Oklahoma didn’t have a great NCAA Tournament last year. Only one wrestler advanced to the NCAA bloodround (DJ Parker) and he fell in that round. Parker returns and will be up a weight. 197 lbs will be tough in the Big 12, but he’s someone who has progressively improved throughout each season. There’s no reason to think he won’t take another step in 2025-26. One big reason for optimism in the upcoming season is that Roger Kish’s staff remade the squad through the transfer portal. They’ve added an All-American at 165 lbs (Peyten Kellar) and a wrestler who was seeded fourth in the country after winning an ACC title as a freshman (Rafael Hipolito). They also added NCAA qualifiers Jack Gioffre (149) and Brian Soldano (184). You also have to consider the fruits of the third-year staff’s recruiting efforts starting to blossom. Kish’s team inked the #3 overall recruiting class in 2024 and had patience with them, by generally keeping them in redshirt last year. Now, Beric Jordan and Alex Braun, two of the headliners from the group, get the opportunity to win starting roles and establish themselves nationally. Both start the year in the bottom half of the preseason rankings, but could rise quickly. Maryland The 2025 NCAA Tournament marked a big milestone in the Alex Clemsen era in College Park. 184 lber Jaxon Smith broke through and got on the NCAA podium with a sixth-place finish. There’s a lot of hype surrounding the young guys at this weight, but the senior Smith shouldn’t be overlooked. A high finish from him puts the Terps in a good position to crack the top 20 for the first time since 2014. In addition to Smith, Maryland also has veteran Braxton Brown at 133 lbs. Brown is a three-time qualifier who was seeded ninth last year. He starts the year ranked 10th in a tough weight. Going from 10th to the podium isn’t much of a stretch, though. We’ll see if Dario Lemus (141), Kal Miller (149), Dom Solis (174), or Chase Horne (285) are able to chip in with points at the NCAA tournament too. Even with just putting Smith on the podium in 2025, Maryland was only 2.5 points out of a tie for 18th place. Wyoming Once again, NCAA team scores are star-driven and Wyoming has one of the top title contenders at 197 lbs in Joey Novak. Novak starts the year ranked third at the weight. He finished fifth in 2025 as a true sophomore. If Novak wrestles anywhere close to his ranking, the rest of the squad doesn’t need to chip in that much for the Cowboys to crack the top 20. Even with a couple of seasons under his belt, we’re not sure what to expect from Christian Carroll at heavyweight. The former #2 overall recruit seems to be caught between weight classes; however, his talent should carry him at 285 lbs, as opposed to a big cut at 197. We’ll wait and see if he emerges as a podium threat. Another one to watch is Eddie Neitenbach at 184 lbs. Like Novak, he competed at an upperweight and had a very solid season. Neitenbach ended up fourth at the Big 12 and he won two matches in Philly. Could he make a Novak-like leap in year two in Laramie? Based on Wyoming’s track record with big guys, it’s definitely something to consider. Wyoming’s probable lineup also includes past national qualifiers like Gabe Willochell (149) and Jared Hill (157).