Notebook: NC State Wrestling opens ultra-tough ACC slate at UVA

Believe it or not, week three of the 2021 college wrestling season means it’s already time for ACC action. NC State wrestling opens its conference slate Friday night at 5 p.m. in Charlottesville, Va.

The start of league action means there are no nights off for the Wolfpack. Though the ACC has just six teams, it’s developed into an incredibly tough conference in the sport. In the latest NCAA coaches’ poll, the league boasts not only No. 4 NC State, but also No. 8 Virginia Tech, No. 12 Pittsburgh, No. 13 North Carolina and a Virginia squad that’s received enough votes to unofficially tie for No. 27 nationally.

But that listing may not even give the ACC its proper due.

Though the coaches' rankings are based on a team's dual-meet strength — and the regular season is made up of dual meets — everything everyone cares about in the sport (ACC and NCAA championships) is decided by tournaments (though the ACC does award a regular-season title).

WrestleStat’s team tournament rankings, for example, show the league is even deeper and more competitive than it looks in the coaches' poll. It awards each competitor the corresponding number of team points he'd earn at the NCAA Championships for finishing at his ranking.

In that listing, all six ACC programs check in among the top 35 nationally, led by four in the top 11: No. 4 NC State, No. 5 Virginia Tech, No. 8 Pittsburgh and No. 11 North Carolina.

“The ACC is tough as nails; it has been the last couple years,” head coach Pat Popolizio admitted before the season. “There’s going to be a lot of great wrestling, and I think across the board all the teams are pretty even dual meet-wise, so that will make it fun.”

Something we've started tracking in this weekly notebook is what we're calling the ACC consensus national rankings found below. Four national polls are compiled then averaged to not only show how much wrestling power is concentrated in the small-but-mighty ACC, but also how tightly grouped together some of these weights are from a national perspective.

Some interesting nuggets from the consensus national rankings:

• Of the 60 possible starters for the league, 44 (73.3 percent) wound up ranked among the top 33 nationally by one of four outlets. Thirty-six of those grapplers have at least one ranking among the top 20, and 19 are in the top 10.

• Seven of the 10 weight classes have at least one wrestler ranked among the top five nationally in one poll — 184 and 197 both have two such grapplers.

• No weight class has a wrestler from all six schools ranked, but 133 has six ranked in the top 20 by at least one outlet — although two are from UNC (due to lineup uncertainty).

• Incredibly, half of the 10 weight classes have wrestlers from five schools ranked in at least one national poll:

- 133 — as noted above, this is probably the deepest weight class from top to bottom in the league. Three wrestlers are ranked in the top 10, and five in the top 13, by at least one outlet.

- 141 — including three ranked between 9 and 16 in all four listings.

- 165 — four of which are in the top 12 according to all four polls, including near-unanimous national No. 1 Mekhi Lewis (VT).

- 174 — three are ranked in the top 14 of all four rankings.

- 184 — including two in the top five.

The ACC regular season, and then its championship tournament held Feb. 28 in Raleigh, should be very competitive. Keep in mind, these things almost always wind up closer than they appear on paper.

There will be some excellent matchups Friday night. Fifth-year senior 157-pounder Hayden Hidlay has a top-20 opponent in Justin McCoy but won’t be found below simply because he’s so dominant and beat McKoy twice last year by major decision, by a combined score of 24-3.

There are several questions we should get answers to — how does freshman 149-pounder Ed Scott rebound from his first loss Friday night (though it came against a top-10 wrestler)? If he can overcome UVA’s Denton Spencer, that’s the type of victory, especially combined with last week’s close loss, that will get rankers’ attention.

Does redshirt sophomore 184-pounder Trent Hidlay make his season debut after an emergency appendectomy? He’s listed among the Wolfpack probables with an ‘or.’

Here are the top most intriguing matchups Friday night and why we’ll be watching closely:

Virginia's Louie Hayes has five bonus-point wins in five chances this year, including a 12-4 major decision over App State’s Sean Carter. Carter battled the Pack's Jarrett Trombley to a close 4-2 decision last week.

Trombley and Hayes wrestled twice last year, with each winning once. If Trombley wins the rubber match, NC State could win this dual comfortably. If Hayes wins, the team score could be closer than it looks like it should be on paper. This 133-pound match is truly a tossup.

One wrinkle is that for the first time this year, freshman Ryan Jack is listed as an ‘or’ among NC State’s probables. It could be something, it could be nothing, but it’s worth noting. While Trombley beat Carter in a close one last Friday, NC State and App State competed in “extra matches” Saturday, where Jack posted a dominant 9-2 victory over Carter, who is in the bottom of a few national rankings.

Regardless of who wrestles for the Pack, this should be a good one.

UVA's Jake Keating began his career at 149 pounds and is way up at 165 now, where he's impressed this year. He posted a 6-5 win over NCAA qualifier Dazjon Casto of The Citadel earlier this year and also has a win over App State’s Will Formato.

Meanwhile, NC State's Thomas Bullard is coming off a loss to Formato Friday night, though here’s your weekly reminder that the transitive property doesn’t always apply in wrestling. Keating has worked himself into the top 20 nationally according to most, so this is no easy get-right match for Bullard, who is still listed pretty high nationally despite last week's loss.

Jay Aiello is the Cavaliers’ best wrestler, the defending ACC champion at the weight and a legitimate national title contender. He may even be the league's biggest favorite on paper at his weight (it’s him or the Pack's Hayden Hidlay).

However, if there’s anyone in the league that can overachieve from his current national ranking, it’s Nick Reenan. Before tearing his ACL during the 2018-19 season, many projected him to compete for national titles. He has looked better than ever since the injury so far this year, but this is a huge step up in competition from what’s he seen.

Regardless of which national rankings you prefer, this one’s as close as they come on paper. In the four national rankings surveyed above, the biggest separation between the two big men in any listing is three slots. Wilson beat Miller twice last year, allowing just one point in each matchup (5-1 and 7-1), so could have an edge. But that also means Miller is out for revenge.

The top three ACC heavyweights are ranked anywhere from 13 to 19 in the national polls quoted above, meaning any of them could beat the others on any given day.

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