Ohio State's Wrestling Starting Lineup Could Feature As Many As Four Freshmen This Season

Replacing them, each four-time All Americans, with Snyder a three-time NCAA champ and Tomasello never finishing worse than third in the final tournament of the season, is no small task. Head coach Tom Ryan knows that if his squad is to have a shot at back-to-back-to-back Big Ten titles – let alone have any hope of toppling Penn State's NCAA tournament dynasty – the young guns have to live up to some lofty expectations.

"This team could see as many as four freshmen in the lineup," Ryan told Eleven Warriors. "I hope they do as well as freshmen as Kyle, Nate and Bo did."

Ryan pointed out that the last time the Buckeyes won a national title, those three men were freshmen getting their first taste of big-time college wrestling. For those freshmen hoping to crack the starting lineup, the next six weeks are crucial.

"Last summer there would had to have been a major development in a given weight class to not know who the starter was going to be," Ryan explained. "This year we have five returning All Americans, which is a great nucleus, but there are five other weight classes that are up for grabs."

Age and Experience

That nucleus of returning All Americans includes Luke Pletcher (133 pounds), Joey McKenna (141), Micah Jordan (157), Myles Martin (184) and Kollin Moore (197).

Martin won the NCAA title in 2016 and was national-runner up in each of the past two seasons; he may be the early favorite to win it all this season with Bo Nickal moving up to 197 pounds. Moore, who had something of an up-and-down season last year, will contend for that title, but faces a bigger challenge in Nickal than he would have from the rest of the field.

Pletcher and McKenna will again be in contention to wrestle in the latter rounds of the NCAA tournament, and bring a great deal of talent and experience back to their respective weight classes.

FloWrestling analyst Andrew Spey pegs the returning Buckeyes no worse than fourth in the Big Ten – Jordan, at 157 – and as high as No. 1 in the conference in the case of McKenna and Martin. Pletcher and Moore are both slated at No. 2 in Spey's preseason conference rankings.

Where things get interesting for the returning Buckeyes is in the middle of the lineup. Ryan confirmed Wednesday that Micah Jordan is moving down from 157 to challenge Ke-Shawn Hayes for the starting spot at 149 pounds, setting off a series of potential roster moves in the much-maligned middle weights.

"Micah is coming down for sure, so the winner of that between Micah and Ke-Shawn will go 149, and the loser will go to 157," Ryan said. 

"It's as big as the Burrow-Haskins battle," he continued, referring to the offseason battle between Dwayne Haskins and Joe Burrow to start at quarterback for the football team.

Micah Jordan may wrestle at 149 this season, instead of taking another shot at 157. © Mike Carter-USA TODAY Sports

Ryan said either Jordan or Hayes is capable of winning the NCAA tournament at 149, pointing out that Hayes beat the top returning seed from last year's tournament, Princeton's Matthew Kolodzik, last year during the dual-meet season. 

If Jordan wins the wrestle-off, Hayes will bump up to 157, where he'll likely be one of the smaller wrestlers at the weight.

"We saw Micah, who wasn't a huge 157-pounder, place at the NCAA, so as soon as the wrestle-off is over, you go from eating 2,500 calories a day to eating 6,000 calories a day, and you build up to 157," Ryan said. "Ke-Shawn wrestled 154 this summer with a day-before weigh-in, and wrestled really well."

Te'Shan Campbell, another veteran, will also be moving up a class for the upcoming season. After wrestling as one of the larger 165-pounders in last year's class, the former Pitt Panther hopes to succeed Bo Jordan as the starter at 174 pounds.

"Campbell had to make that cut down to '65, and he without question had the biggest cut of anybody on the team," Ryan said. "He's just a very dense body, a lot of muscle on it, and it really took a toll on him; I think we all saw that as fans. We did the best we could to keep his weight down, but it was just a struggle for him. So he's happy to be moving up."

He'll be challenged for the starting spot by redshirt freshman Ethan Smith, a former FloNationals champion and two-time Maryland state champ. Ryan said the two are very different wrestlers, with Campbell a bit more defensive on his feet while Smith takes a more offensive approach.

Young Bucks

Smith isn't the only freshman hoping to make his way into the starting lineup. Redshirt freshman Kaleb Romero will battle redshirt sophomores Elijah Cleary and Fritz Schierl for the starting spot at 165 pounds.

Romero, a four-time Ohio high school state champ, is one of the more talented prospects the Buckeyes have recruited in a string of elite recruiting classes. Cleary and Schierl have another year in the program, and will give the freshman all he can handle in the wrestle-off, with Schierl making the finals at the Under-23 Greco-Roman national championships this summer.

The most intriguing question for the Buckeyes is what happens at 125 pounds. True freshman Malik Heinselman comes to Columbus as one of the highest-rated lightweight recruits in the country, a three-time state champ in Colorado, a two-time Cadet World Team Member and 2017 U.S. Open Junior Champion.

In a perfect world, Heinselman would take a redshirt year. Ryan knows, however, that Heinselman is talented enough that he might get the nod at some point during the season.

"We will not pull his redshirt early on, but we're watching him really closely," Ryan said. "It doesn't make sense to pull him and have him make it to nationals, and then score one or two points."

Heinselman will wrestle in as many open tournaments as possible to both give him some additional experience and to give Ryan and his staff enough data to decide if it makes sense to start him in place of Brakan Mead, the sophomore who started last season in place of an injured Nathan Tomasello, burning his own redshirt in the process.

"[Heinselman] came to Ohio State for summer school – he didn't need it, he's a straight-A student – but came because when you're in summer school there are some things it allows you to do from a training standpoint, so he could be working with our strength and conditioning coach," Ryan said. "Size will play a little bit of a role, but he's so fast I think he will be able to make up for some of the size he doesn't have."

After wrestling his senior season at 120 pounds, Ryan says Heinselman is up to 133 pounds at the beginning of September, and that if the staff thinks he can legitimately contend with the top five or six wrestlers in the class, there's a chance he starts instead of Mead.

There is one redshirt freshman who already knows he'll be starting come November. Chase Singletary, the top heavyweight recruit in the country in the Class of 2017, will follow in the footsteps of living legend Kyle Snyder.

While it seems unlikely to expect Snyder-like heroics from his young understudy, Ryan is high on the program's future big man.

"Chase doesn't have a ton of matches against the bigger heavyweights, so there's going to be some learning about how to win matches against guys who are substantially heavier than him," Ryan said, "But the thing about Chase, the number-one quality he has is that he's a tough person. He's tough."

Ryan said that in addition to his toughness, Singletary is good on top, is a great scrambler, and is working on his leg attacks; in the mold of Kyle Snyder, in other words.

"We're excited about him," Ryan said. "He's 6-foot-4, so he passes the eye test, [has] big strong hips and legs, and he's a big piece of the puzzle for us if we're going to win it this year."

Putting It All Together

Wrestle-offs will take place Oct. 18 during the annual coaches clinic, and absent decisions being made before mid-October, will feature bouts at 149, 165 and 174 pounds. Without accounting for those matches or the inclusion of Heinselman in the lineup, FloWrestling projects Ohio State as the third-best team in the Big Ten, behind Penn State and Iowa.

Heinselman will have a tough row to hoe if he grabs the starting spot, as the Big Ten features two of the top lightweights in the country in returning national champion Spencer Lee of Iowa (who won, by the way, as a true freshman) and Nick Suriano of Rutgers, who may or may not move up to 133.

Hayes is projected as the No. 3 man at 149 pounds in the Big Ten, with Jordan clocking in at No. 4 in the FloWrestling preseason conference rankings. Flo doesn't have a Buckeye in the top half of their Big Ten rankings at either 125 or 165, and pegs Campbell at No. 7 in the conference at 174.

What lineup will roll into the dual meet season come November? And will that lineup remain intact until March? If Jordan opted to stay at 157 pounds, prognosticating the team's chances would be much simpler. He might have a higher ceiling at 149, but projecting Hayes' chances at 157, just a season after he battled Joey McKenna for the starting spot at 141, is a bit harder.

Will Te'Shan Campbell break through at 174 pounds? © Mike Carter-USA TODAY Sports  

Recruiting rankings, meanwhile, suggest that Kaleb Romero will earn the spot at 165, while 174 becomes a question of age and strength versus youth and raw talent.

"We've ridden the backs of some guys who were really vested in being the best," Ryan said of the changing of the guard taking place with his roster. "There's a chance for guys to step up, and it's exciting. We're not cautiously optimistic, we're excited."

Ohio State opens the dual-meet season vs. the United States Naval Academy, at the McDonogh School in Owings Mills, Maryland – Martin's alma mater – on Nov. 3.