Five Storylines for OSU’s Duals with Iowa State and Northern Iowa

The Cowboys go on the road to wrestle Iowa State and Northern Iowa. Here are five of the biggest storylines of the weekend’s matches.

1. Freshmen Get Their Toughest Tests

One of the most talked about things of this season for Oklahoma State is its No. 1 recruiting class and the fact that we’ve seen three of those newcomers in the starting lineup so far this season. Trevor Mastrogiovanni has been the starter at 125, Dustin Plott has been the starter at 174 and AJ Ferrari at 197. All three are undefeated and, for the most part, have comfortably worked their way through this season without a ton of resistance.

Howeva, Mastrogiovanni will wrestle UNI’s Brody Teske (who is currently ranked No. 5 in the country), Dustin Plottwill see Julien Broderson and Lance Runyon who are both nationally ranked. Ferrari will still be favored in both of his matches, but has a really intriguing one with Iowa State’s Yonger Bastida who was a U23 World Medalist for Cuba.

2. Can Austin Harris Keep the Magic Going?

Austin Harris has surprised almost everyone by going undefeated to this point and turning a number of heads in the wrestling world in the process, but he hasn’t seen a lot of highly ranked competition to this point. He will see two Top 10-ranked seniors this weekend. If he can knock off either one of them, he would insert himself as a problem in the heavyweight division this season.

3. No Kaid Brock 

When John Smith was asked about Kaid Brock this week, this was his response.

“We’ll discuss that a little bit more next week,” Smith said. “He won’t be travelling with us this weekend.”

Not something most Oklahoma State fans probably wanted to hear.

We’ll learn more next week, but we’ll see Dusty Hone against fifth-ranked Ian Parker for Iowa State and UNI’s Drew Bennett. Hone performed well last season but Parker will provide quite the test for him this weekend.

4. Jalin Haper Still Possibly Filling In

When speaking with John Smith this week at the media availability, it sounds like Wyatt Sheets will still be out of the duals this week and Jalin Harper will get the start again at 157. He’ll have a tough test with Iowa State’s David Carr and a winnable match vs. UNI’s Derek Holschlag. Both duals could be close, so whatever happens here might play a role in who wins the dual.

5. OSU’s Toughest Duals Left This Season?

The Big 12 and Cowboy Challenge Tournament’s later in the season will be the toughest wrestling this OSU team, as a whole, will deal with before the NCAA tournament. These are probably OSU’s two toughest remaining duals this season. Both programs bested OU last week and the Sooners and Little Rock are all that remains on the schedule for the Cowboys this season.

UNI starts at 1 p.m. on FloWrestling. Iowa State will be on ESPN+ at 7 p.m.

I went on a podcast with the Des Moines Register’s Cody Goodwin to discuss the duals early this week. You can check it out here.