NC State Wolfpack wrestling has sights set on a team trophy at NCAA Championships

Only two ACC wrestling teams in the league’s history have brought home a team trophy from the NCAA Championships, which requires a top-four finish in the team score. An ACC member has never placed higher than fourth — Virginia Tech was the first to do it, in 2016, and then NC State followed suit in 2018.

The Wolfpack was in the team trophy conversation at last year's canceled event and could threaten for the league’s best finish ever when the NCAA Championships begin Thursday at 11 a.m. ET.

According to FloWrestling's Andrew Spey, the team score projections based solely on the seeds (if the better seed won every match) would have NC State finishing third nationally, behind Iowa and Penn State, and two team points (a razor-thin margin) ahead of ACC rival Virginia Tech. Missouri and Arizona State would be just 1.5 points behind the Hokies.

That means the trophy race — especially for third and fourth place — could be as tight as ever, and NC State is squarely in that mix. They rank third in the country with six top-10 seeds, behind only Iowa and Missouri, who had eight each.

Of course, the Wolfpack could always wrestle above their seeds. It wasn’t long after the team claimed its third straight ACC championship that head coach Pat Popolizio and star 157-pounder Hayden Hidlay began talking about the “ultimate goal” of winning a national championship.

"I don't want to put any kind of cap on what our team can do,” Hidlay said then. “A lot of people are going to count us out if I was to say that we're going to win it all, but why not us?

"If we go out and put a couple guys in the finals like I know we're able to, I don't see why we can't win it all. … I would be really disappointed in myself if I didn't say that we can win it all. That's what we came here to do. Until that last whistle blows, that's the goal and that's what we want to do. I don't feel embarrassed about saying that."

“You have your work cut out for you when you’ve got programs like Iowa and Penn State [ahead of you],” Popolizio said last week. “They have history and tradition, we know that.

“You have to really elevate your game [to finish ahead of them]. … All the guys have to wrestle to their seed — which isn’t an easy task to do, it doesn’t matter what team or athlete you are — and then you need a guy or two to really step up their game and score points you didn’t expect.

“We all know anything can happen at the national tournament; it’s a wild, crazy tournament. Nobody has an advantage over anyone. With not having it last year, every athlete has been out of the game, as far as the national tournament, for two years, so it’s going to be a fun, interesting competition.”

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Ever since last year’s NCAAs were canceled, Hidlay has encourage his team to use a “down down” mantra, where this season is worth double after their last opportunity on the big stage was taken away due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We had a great year last year,” he recently explained. “We did everything almost to perfection — we were perfect in the dual meet season, won the regular-season ACC championship, won the ACC [tournament] championship and just didn’t get a chance to cap it off.

“… I think the double-down theme worked, and now it’s about cashing in. We have a big opportunity in front of us. We have nine guys going to the national tournament and if we all put up some points, we can do a lot of damage and bring home a team trophy. I think that’s all that we want, and we felt like we could’ve done it last year. Now this year there’s a little bit of that intrinsic motivation where it’s worth double.”

The national wrestling media also seems pretty high on the Pack. Five different media outlets update their national rankings online every week and put those listings into a scoring rubric that assigns placement and advancement points in the NCAA Tournament for each wrestler based on the ranking (No. 1 at each weight class gets the points a national champion would earn, No. 2 gets second, etc.).

Here's where NC State checks in each of those:

• InterMat (IM in the chart below) — 3rd, 8.5 points behind No. 2 Penn State; 2 points ahead of No. 4 Virginia Tech

• FloWrestling (Flo) — 4th, 0.5 points behind No. 3 Virginia Tech

• The Open Mat (TOM) — 4th, 3.5 points behind No. 3 Virginia Tech, 1.5 points ahead of No. 5 Nebraska

• Track Wrestling (Track) — tied for 4th with Virginia Tech, 2.5 points behind No. 3 Nebraska, 3.5 points ahead of No. 6 Arizona State

• WrestleStat (WS) — 6th, but only 2 points behind No. 4 Virginia Tech

Keep in mind that one bonus point can be earned for a major decision victory (winning an individual bout by eight or more points), or two for a victory by pin to give an idea of how tight these team score projections are.

According to those same five outlets’ latest individual national rankings, four NC State wrestlers are unanimously ranked among the nation’s top 8 (which earn All-America honors), while another is listed top eight by four of the five (see chart below).

Others are definite contenders as well, three more are ranked among the top 15 nationally in the majority of those five polls. Here’s a breakdown where each of NC State’s nine qualifiers stand in the various national rankings that are updated weekly.

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Four All-Americans at one NCAA Championships would tie the school record set in 2018, when NC State tied for fourth place. Five or more would enter rarefied air in the sport, especially at a non-traditional wrestling power (though the Wolfpack has entered that category the last handful of years).

The Pack could also put multiple wrestlers in the NCAA finals, which was another key to their fourth-place finish in 2018. In addition to Hayden Hidlay — who lost in the gold-medal bout three years ago — brother Trent Hidlay enters as the No. 2 seed at 184 pounds and is in the national title conversation.

While Hayden admits the brothers have dreamed about winning titles together in the same year, he knows they are just as close to accomplishing the dream as they are to a devastating loss. At the start of the tournament, they are 72 hours away from reaching the summit or experiencing heartbreak — there isn't much in between.

"That's a long distance away," he said when asked about both Hidlays claiming gold. "There's 10 wins between us that need to happen for that, but that's always been the goal, I won't lie. To be able to win it with Trent would be an accomplishment much bigger than myself.

"I think the Brands brothers [in 1990] were the last to do it in the sport, and to do it the same year would be something really special. … But we're taking things one step at a time right now. Can I see it happening? Absolutely, and that's a little bit of extra incentive to do it side by side with him."

In many different ways, NC State is on the cusp of history at the three-day NCAA Championships. However, nothing but a chance to accomplish it is guaranteed.

After all that has transpired the last 12 months, the Wolfpack wrestling team will gladly take that and see how the double-down pays out.

The Wolfpacker will be tracking the action from the NCAA Championships as it happens, so be sure to keep it tuned here once wrestling begins at 11 a.m. ET