You hear whispers that Anthony Echemendia, the newest member of the Ohio State wrestling program, is a once-in-a-lifetime talent. From social media observers to sources close to the program, there’s a buzz about the Cuban phenom typically reserved for certified blue-chippers from big-time high schools that produce Division I talent year in, year out.

When Echemendia strolled into Fargo and won not only the freestyle but also the Greco-Roman brackets last summer, his stock went through the roof, and the buzz started. Now that he’s officially part of the program — after a lengthy university admittance process — the most pressing question is what to do with him.

Where do you plug a generational talent into the lineup?

The most obvious spot is at 141. Luke Pletcher finished his career as a Big Ten champion and will join the coaching ranks, leaving a major hole in the roster for Tom Ryan to fill next season.

Echemendia has made no secret on his social media profiles that he would like to wrestle 141 (or 149, which we’ll get to in a moment), which has been a position of strength for the Buckeyes going clear back to J Jaggers’ days as a two-time NCAA champion. When you ask the Cuban specifically where he’s going to wrestle, though, he toes the party line.

“That's all on Tom Ryan,” Echemendia told me in early March. “He’s going to be the one telling me my weight class, because he’s the coach — I’m the athlete.”

At the time, Ryan said once May rolled around and Echemendia started truly training like a Buckeye, the staff would evaluate his weight and conditioning to make a determination. That, it should be said, was before COVID-19 ended the college wrestling season and shuttered athletic training facilities across the country.

Even so, all indications are that Ryan expects his latest prize recruit to take up where Pletcher left off, as the top man in the class. But it isn’t like Echemendia is his only option at 141. 

Dylan D’Emilio is a four-time Ohio high school champion, a Fargo champ and three-time finalist, and a former Cadet Pan-American Games silver medalist. Not to mention the fact that highly-touted recruit Quinn Kinner would have started at 141 last season had Pletcher not opted to move up from 133 for his senior campaign.

What to do with D’Emilio and Kinner is no small question. Kinner bounced around the roster last season, from 141 at wrestle-offs to 133 when the season started to 157 in open-tournament action; it’s hard to see him not finding a spot in the lineup given his talent and work ethic, but with four or five guys to slot in three classes, someone will be the odd man out.

Which leads to 149 pounds. 

The simplest answer here is that it’s Sammy Sasso’s weight, open and shut case, no reason to talk about this at all. But with Sasso weighing in at a svelte 150 pounds on Instagram this week with seemingly no spare ounces on his frame to be found, it’s not unreasonable to think it makes sense to at least consider bumping Sasso up a class and slotting Echemendia in at ’49.

Sasso finished a freshman-of-the-year season as the No. 3 man in the country at 149, having spent several weeks late in the season at No. 1 after beating Pat Lugo in Iowa City. With Lugo graduating, Sasso is one of the top-two returning guys in the class, but would Ohio State’s lineup be stronger if he moved up?

Is D’Emilio / Kinner/ Echemendia / Sasso a stronger combination than Echemendia / Sasso / Cleary / Kinner? That seems like a discussion worth having.

Which leads up to the question of what to do at 157. 

This was one of two spots the Buckeyes didn’t qualify for the NCAA Wrestling Championships this season, and an area where Ryan needs to find more production for his team to get back into title contention.

Elijah Cleary was the man most of the season, and he always seemed to be just on the cusp of making it happen. Ryan continually praises his work ethic and talks about the talent they see in the room at practice every day, but that talent and determination only led to three dual-meet wins last season, as the redshirt junior went just 2-4 in Big Ten competition.

Kinner did marginally better here, going 2-1 against Big Ten opponents, including an injured Brady Berge in a victory at Penn State to cap the regular season. With a lengthy offseason under his belt, he may be ready to put his stamp on the weight an unseat Cleary as the full-time starter.

But there’s also little question that if Echemendia had been admitted to Ohio State last December, he would have been in the mix at 157 for the Buckeyes. They needed him, and he would have surely been in the discussion to take the weight mid-season.

"We should have had him in December, but there was a lot to process with admissions and with his status as a citizen," Ryan said back in March when Echemendia was officially admitted to the University.

And even if he’s only weighing 150 now, it’s not hard to see him packing on some quality weight under a collegiate nutrition and training program. So the lineup question is interesting here for the same reason: What gives Ohio State the best production come tournament time? How much is Sasso cutting, and how much has he grown over the course of the offseason, could help answer that question.

We won’t know the answer to many of these questions until wrestle-offs this fall. But with a generational talent like Echemendia entering the discussion, it’s going to be a fun topic to pick apart all summer long.

Andy Vance is a Columbus-based journalist who covers the Ohio State University wrestling program for Eleven Warriors, the largest independent sports site on the internet for Ohio State news, analysis, and community. He is co-host of the site’s Eleven Dubcast podcast. Follow him on Twitter @AndyVance.