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What OSU’s Wrestling Lineup Could Look Like in 2018

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At the end of this past season, I threw out a lineup projection for next year. This was it. On Monday, OSU landed a new recruit that could shift things around a little bit at the upper weights, and there are some things I’ve seen and heard that I thought I’d throw out as a bit of a revision and my thoughts on what may happen.

So for sanity’s sake, I’ll go weight by weight and give my predictions.

125 will be Daton Fix. I originally said I thought the best lineup was him at 33, and I still think that would work, but Daton Fix will be at 125 and will dominate the weight class with the exception of Iowa’s Spencer Lee, who could give him some trouble. It’s a near certainty the NCAA final will be a matchup between those two.

133 will be earned by Nick Piccinnini. In my original post, I said it was an either-or thing with Piccinnini and Fix. One at 125 and one at 133. Nick will be at 133.

141 will be between Kaid Brock and Kaden Gfeller to start. I originally projected Kaden to win this, but I think I was a little short-sighted after the NCAA tournament. I do think Kaid struggles a little with big physical guys, but I found out he was really cutting a lot of weight to make 133 and struggled with it. If he does the right things this summer to fill out the 141-pound weight class I think he wins the spot.

149 will go to Boo Lewallen again. There was a pretty good three way battle for the spot here between Boo, Tristan Moran and Geo Martinez. I think Geo will go up to 157 and Boo beats out Tristan to start here. You can throw in Kaden Gfeller in the mix here possibly too, but I think Boo is the guy that takes the spot.

At 157 I’m going to go with Geo Martinez. Joe Smith is who you want to see here, but the general consensus is weight cut will be too much for him. Ultimately I’ll go with Geo making the move up to 157 and beating out Jonce for the starting spot. I think Jonce Blaylock will give Geo all he wants in the fight for the starting spot, and I don’t rule out Joe pulling off the weight cut if he can be convinced to do it.

This is also dependent on Geo being healthy and around. This is a big “if”. If healthy he’s a talented All American, but it’s probably a toss up as to who wins.

As a tangent and add-on in regards to Joe Smith: Without a doubt the best thing for this program is to have Joe Smith here. He was up as high as 174 this season, but I do know I’ve been around him a little and physically I think he could make 157 if he went for it. It may be a struggle, but I think he could do it. He hasn’t grown a foot taller or bulked up. It looks like he just put on some weight and I think his injury could’ve played a role. If you’re hurt and not wrestling, taking a redshirt year and don’t have to watch your weight, you can add a few pounds. I think if he starts a legit dieting effort to get down he “could” pull it off. Weight cutting is a weird game where the last few pounds are usually water weight and crash dieting, which is difficult, but I really do think Joe could legitimately get a lot closer than he currently is just by working his weight down with a legit diet. I also think if he does do that they’ll work an angle to make it easier on him by starting Geo Martinez or Jonce Blaylock from time to time to give him a break and some things like that.

165: Joe Smith. Again I hope he stays down at 157 and can pull it off, but if he’s not there, he’s here, and I think he’s better head to head with Chandler Rogers and takes this one, potentially forcing Chandler up to 174-pounds.

174: I’ll go with Jacobe Smith here. If Chandler comes up it becomes a battle to start between these two. With the size and athleticism of Jacobe I’ll say he takes it, but honestly this is a true toss up between two All-Americans that could go either way.

184: Dakota Geer. I’m actually a little higher on Keegan Moore than some and I think he’ll make this more interesting than people think, the comments I read on here and social medial last year regarding him weren’t usually positive. I think a lot of what we saw last year was him adjusting to the D1 level and I think he figured some things out towards the end of the season. I still go with Geer winning the starting job. The kid’s a very good wrestler and big time transfer for the program. He did tell me in our interview that he may move up to 197, but I think that will be after this year and after Weigel graduates.

197: Preston Weigel. I wrote the other day the kid is a national title contender if he can stay healthy. Big question is can he? If he doesn’t this is Marsden or Geer.

285: Derek White. This the only weight I’m pretty much 100% certain on is this one. Barring some major development out of Blake Andrews, White will be the guy. Hopefully he continues to throw around OU heavyweights like they’re 125 pounders.

Ultimately this is a completely stacked lineup any way you look at it, so someone pretty good wrestlers get left out almost no matter what and personally I’d guess the staff aren’t even sure what will happen here. I’d imagine they have an idea of what they want, but it’s all dependent on what certain guys are willing to and can do with their weight.

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