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On Friday morning, the Chattanooga athletic department confirmed that two-time NCAA qualifier Cody Chittum has been added to the Mocs roster after transferring from Iowa State. Chittum is a Tennessee native, so this will be a homecoming, of sorts. It is quite the circuitous route to Chattanooga as Chittum initially went to Iowa City and trained with the Hawkeye Wrestling Club with plans to enroll at the University of Iowa. Those never materialized and Chittum ended up across the state wrestling for the Cyclones. Once Chittum went into the transfer portal, he announced he was transferring to Ohio State. Those plans fell through and rumors began to surface that Chattanooga might be Chittum's landing spot. While at Iowa State, Chittum made two trips to the NCAA Championships. As a freshman, he was a Big 12 finalist at 157 lbs. He lost in an epic overtime bout against Northern Iowa's Ryder Downey in the finals. Earlier this year, Chittum was sixth at the Big 12 Championships, but won a pair of bouts at the NCAA Tournament. In both appearances, he was given a top 16 seed. At one point, during his high school career, Chittum was tabbed the number one overall recruit in the Class of 2023. He later reclassified up a year and didn't appear in the final rankings. With Chittum's addition, the Mocs get another jolt in the arm from the transfer portal. Earlier this offseason, Kyle Ruschell's team added two-time national qualifier Cooper Flynn, Class of 2024 top 50 recruit Carter Neves, along with Hunter Mason, Mason Reiniche, and Billy Meiszner. They could head into the 2025-26 campaign as the team to beat in the SoCon.

Campbell University has announced that TJ Dudley will be promoted to become the program’s next head coach. Dudley came to Campbell a year ago as an assistant coach under then-head coach Scotti Sentes. During Dudley’s first year on staff, Campbell went 11-9, finished third at the SoCon Championships, and sent three wrestlers to the NCAA Championships. Dudley also worked closely with 2024 All-American heavyweight Taye Ghadiali, who participated in the 2024 NWCA All-Star Classic, but then was lost for the year to injury. Before coming to Campbell, Dudley spent three years as an assistant at Brown University. As a competitor, Dudley was a three-time All-American for the University of Nebraska. In 2016, he made the finals of the Big Ten and NCAA Championships. He was twice named the program’s Most Outstanding Wrestler. Following his graduation, Dudley continued to compete on the Senior level and finished third at the US Open. Dudley will inherit a Campbell program that is in transition. Before the 2024-25 season, the athletic department announced that wrestling would be one of five programs facing a severe funding cut as a result of the school "opting in" to revenue sharing. Shortly after this announcement and after the regular season, there were a handful of notable Campbell wrestlers who entered the transfer portal. At this point in time, none of the wrestlers on the Camels roster have previous NCAA experience.

One of the main themes of the 2025 offseason has been the transfer portal. Frankly, it was a huge talking point last year. It will be for the foreseeable future in college wrestling (and college athletics, in general). With old-school wrestling fans, mentioning the transfer portal tends to elicit uneasy feelings and a desire to return to the “old days,” when you could project a team’s lineup in April because you knew who they had coming into school, who they had graduating, and who was returning. Now, with the portal, a lineup could be remade in an offseason. Oklahoma State added three multi-time All-Americans in the 2024 offseason and went from tenth place at nationals to third in Philly. Rumors of six-figure deals have been commonplace and agreements/pressure to enter the transfer portal have been viewed as “the cost of doing business” in this era. When a friend of a particular program educates an athlete on what he/she might be able to earn after a transfer, it isn’t coming from the coaching staff so it may not technically be a violation. In general, the transfer portal can be a dirty business and not necessarily fun for the veteran fan. But today, I want to discuss the other side of the transfer portal. That other side, a more positive side, has been evident from the way Chattanooga has been conducting business these past few months. As the power programs are upgrading, combined with a pending roster limit (30), there has to be somebody who is squeezed out of a position. Sure, it will be the rare exception when a power program goes into the season with a glaring weakness in the lineup. Now, they can just throw money at a veteran transfer. So the way this ecosystem works, as wrestlers are recruited over or lose a starting spot to a transfer, they might feel the need to transfer themselves and are looking for a home. In many cases, these wrestlers have experienced the Big Ten (or other major programs) and the luster has either worn off or the idea of mat time is more important. That’s where a school like Chattanooga comes in. So far, in this transfer portal era, we’ve looked at the smaller programs and lamented the fact when a program recruits and develops a talent like a Michael Caliendo or Nasir Bailey, and they leave for a big payday. And that could happen at Chattanooga. One of their incoming recruits could shine right away, win matches at NCAA’s, and be vulnerable to the predators from the top ten. During this offseason, the Mocs did lose a pair of NCAA qualifiers in Blake Boarman and Sergio Desiante. These concerns will always be there for a smaller program; however, in this instance, they’ve added four recruits - three of which were top 100 recruits coming out of high school. Cooper Flynn (Minnesota - 125), Hunter Mason (Virginia Tech - 141) and Carter Neves (Ohio State - 285). Billy Meiszner of Kent State is the fourth transfer. Flynn is a two-time NCAA qualifier who won two matches at the 2025 tournament. In his two years as a starter, he made the ACC finals and finished seventh in the Big Ten. Mason has a combined record of 21-14 during his redshirt season and his freshman year in 2024-25. He hasn’t set the world on fire, but has some good wins - one of which came against Chattanooga’s 2024 national qualifier Isaiah Powe. Neves was an Ironman and Beast of the East champion - along with an appearance in the UWW U17 Trials finals in freestyle. He has yet to wrestle a collegiate match and has four years of eligibility remaining at heavyweight. Meiszner had a victory over 2025 SoCon champion Carson DesRosier (The Citadel) as one of his two wins over national qualifiers in 2024-25. Over the course of an offseason, Chattanooga remade 40% of their lineup, all of which should be able to contend for SoCon titles in 2026 and more. That’s huge for a program that has been trying to fight with Appalachian State and Campbell to regain control of the conference. Another sign of the times in sports and specifically college wrestling is “load management.” While Chattanooga will wrestle a full schedule with as many dates as Ohio State or Virginia Tech might, the competition is different. Would a veteran like Flynn be better, fresher, and ready to thrive in Cleveland after not wrestling as grueling of a schedule? Also, Flynn and Mason both went to high school in Tennessee. Maybe with a support system closer to home, each will improve their performance on the mat. The new-look Mocs will be an interesting team to follow in the 2025-26. Their offseason additions, along with recruits and returning team members, might make them the front-runner for the conference title. And perhaps some impressive individual accolades. So, as we lament the portal and all of the potentially negative aspects that come along with it, remember there are ways in which it can benefit more than just the normal NCAA team trophy contenders.