No matter what set of national rankings you prefer, they are all in agreement — tonight’s dual between the No. 3 NC State wrestling team and No. 7 Virginia Tech is going to be tight.

How close?

In the NCAA coaches’ panel rankings, Virginia Tech is favored in six of the 10 individual matchups, but eight matches boast a top-32 grappler on either side — and six of them are listed within six slots of each other.

According to InterMat, Virginia Tech is ranked higher in four bouts, NC State has the edge in three and the remaining three matches feature wrestlers not included in their top 20.

Per FloWrestling, each team is the favorite on paper in four weight classes, and the other two feature a pair of grapplers not listed in their top 25. Three matchups feature wrestlers within three slots of each other in the national rankings.

RELATED: Always-intense Virginia Tech match looms for NC State wrestling

Yet national dual rankings done by the coaches (No. 3 to No. 7), InterMat (No. 2 to No. 5) and FloWrestling (No. 2 to No. 6) all favor the Wolfpack.

The Wolfpacker breaks down the expected individual matchups below (numbers listed are from the coaches’ panel rankings released Feb. 13; NC State's wrestlers will always come after the versus):

Camacho beat Prata last year when they were both redshirting, but that was back when their college careers were just starting — in the Hokie Open on Nov. 4, 2018. That was a long time ago — nearly an eternity in the life of a young college wrestler.

Prata is now ranked higher in two of the three polls mentioned above (coaches, InterMat and Flo), by the slimmest of margins — there’s a two-spot difference in two polls and a four-spot lead by Prata in the other.

This is a tossup, but it’s worth noting Camacho is 4-1 in his last five matches, while Prata is 1-3 in his last four duals with the win coming by forfeit. Camacho posted a 9-4 win over UNC’s Joey Melendez last week, Melendez beat Prata, 8-7, Jan. 24 … but the transitive property in wrestling can be dangerous.

These are probably the second- and third-best wrestlers at the weight in the ACC, behind UVA’s Jack Mueller, so a likely preview of the ACC Championship semifinals.

These two have each beaten the other once in the past. Gerardi won a 2-1 decision Nov. 4, 2018, while Trombley won the more recent matchup in more dominant fashion, 6-2, on Jan. 26, 2019.

It’s also another close one according to the coaches’ panel rankings. Even common opponents result in splits.

Trombley beat UVA’s Louie Hayes 4-2 on Jan. 24, while Gerardi fell to Hayes, 5-3, Jan. 31 — but Gerardi beat UNC’s Jamie Hernandez, 4-3, while Trombley fell 1-0 to him last week.

Two of the three national rankings favor Gerardi, and both are unranked in the other.

Every team point is going to matter in this one, but the individual matchup is a true tossup.

The former All-American Wilson has been heating up since injury defaulting out of the Southern Scuffle in early January as a precaution. He has won all four appearances since then and is coming off of a dominant 6-0 win over No. 10 Zach Sherman of UNC.

Moore was the 2019 ACC Freshman of the Year and qualified for the NCAA Championships, but Wilson is ranked about 10 notches higher in most of the national polls. Moore is tough, though, and has hung with four top-13 foes who beat him by only three points or fewer.

Expect this one to be close, just like it was earlier Dec. 7 at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invite when Wilson pulled off a 5-3 win with a four-point move in the final five seconds.

There are ‘or’s listed for both squads, but the usual starters are the two with numbers next to their names: Andonian and Leitten. Andonian, a blue-chip recruit, was pulled out of redshirt and has gone 6-3 in duals.

Leitten is the only Pack starter that doesn’t appear in at least three national rankings but was still elected as a team captain. However, Grippi received the nod last week against UNC’s No. 3-ranked Austin O’Connor and lost a hard-fought 5-3 decision.

It’s also worth noting Hart notched a win over Grippi in late January, so this seems like another toss-up matchup, no matter who either team sends out.

Hidlay won a close 6-4 decision over LaPrade in the dual last year, and then the two did not meet again in the postseason. LaPrade went just 1-2 at NCAAs, while Hidlay captured his second All-America honor with a fourth-place finish.

Hidlay has taken his performances to another level after falling in the Cliff Keen Las Vegas finals to current No. 1 Ryan Deakin Dec. 7. He is 12-0 since then with 10 bonus-point wins while outscoring foes by a margin of 112-15 with two pins. Hidlay is coming off a dominant 9-2 win over No. 15 A.C. Headlee of UNC, and is one of the country’s best wrestlers.

This is a top-10 battle and one of the best matches of the evening. Bullard missed last week’s dual versus UNC, but head coach Pat Popolizio said after the match that it was precautionary and Bullard could’ve gone if needed.

Well, NC State will need him this week. The two-time NCAA qualifier Bullard will face a three-time All-American in McFadden, who is looking to become the first Hokie to ever place among the NCAA’s top eight four times (he placed fifth at 174 pounds last year, but moved back down to 165 this season).

McFadden and Bullard have wrestled different weights and never met before in college. This top-10 matchup should live up to the billing, and could get very “scrambly.”

Perhaps the most one-sided matchup on paper — the two-time NCAA qualifier Bullard against Hughes, a fifth-year senior in his first season as a full-time starter. With how good Bullard is on top, he could rack up enough points to threaten for bonus points, which could decide the dual.

However, Hughes has not given up bonus points since a 12-1 major decision loss in the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invite Dec. 6 and has given up bonus points just twice this season.

As the great Bruce Buffer bellows before a UFC fight, this is the main event of the evening (provided we see Bolen).

Bolen and Hidlay are ranked Nos. 2 and 3 by every major poll in the country. Everybody in the wrestling world wants to see how this one shakes out. We’re likely to see these two match up twice more this year — in the ACC finals, and whether it happens in the NCAA semifinals or not it’s bound to happen again at nationals.

There are major ACC (and likely NCAA) seeding implications here. The winner grabs the top line at the conference tourney, which means the loser will get paired with a top-10 foe (Pitt's Nino Bonaccorsi) in his probable semifinal.

Bolen’s lone loss this year is to Northern Iowa's Taylor Lujan, who he has split with this year, while one of Hidlay’s losses is to Binghamton's Lou DePrez, who he also beat earlier in the season (the other is to two-time defending champ Zahid Valencia). Bolen has two wins over DePrez, while Hidlay has a win over Lujan.

This should be a great match, but it’s as 50/50 on paper as they come. Somebody will take their first dual loss of the year.

Reenan, a two-time NCAA qualifier and a guy that was ranked as high as No. 2 nationally before tearing his ACL last year, just unfortunately has not been himself lately. He has lost four of his last five matches, including one where he had to injury default in the first period.

Houghton is 5-2 in duals this year, but 10-7 overall, including one tournament he entered at heavyweight.

Smeltzer is 12-12 overall and 5-7 in duals. Due to the situation, it’s really another tossup.

The big men have similar resumes, and if the dual starts at 125, it could conceivably come down to Wilson for the second straight match. Despite a 5-1 win over Virginia’s Quinn Miller Jan. 24, Wilson is still ranked behind him in the coaches’ panel, which lists Borst as the ACC’s second-best heavyweight. However, Borst lost to Miller in the UVA dual (6-4), showing how closely grouped together these heavyweights are.

It's a weight class that's really wide open beyond No. 10 Demetrius Thomas of Pitt, but Borst currently occupies the No. 2 slot among big men in the ACC.

Borst is favored over Wilson by all of the national rankings, but that’s probably been the case in each of the last three weeks, during which Wilson is 2-1 with the lone loss to the aforementioned Thomas (6-2).

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