Penn State’s national title reign lives on. 

We never got to see the epic Hawkeyes vs Nittany Lions battle that would’ve ensued in Minneapolis, but there were still a number of great moments for Penn State along the way. Here are the top 10, ranked.

10. Will Penn State Repeat — Again?

The beginning of the last wrestling campaign began like many of the previous wrestling campaigns began: Is Penn State going to win the title again? The Nittany Lions had won the previous four NCAA championships and eight of the previous nine, and they appeared locked and loaded as the favorites at the beginning of the year, a strong Iowa side notwithstanding.

Then, of course, things started to change. We’ll get more into that later down the list, but for the most part this was the conversation that dominated Penn State wrestling (and thus the entire landscape of NCAA wrestling) for much of the year: the team race. 

9. The Gilman Defection

Mr. Hawkeye heads to Penn State. 

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First there was Kyle Snyder defecting from Ohio State to Penn State, and now Gilman. The lightweight’s move to the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club happened after the season was already over, but it’s still a big story for so many reasons: like the guys talk about in their emergency FRL, Gilman was, in many ways, the face of Iowa Wrestling — and he wasn’t leaving to join the UFC or anything like that . . . he was going to Public Enemy No. 1. 

8. Reloading With Recruits

A team led by Cael Sanderson is always going to nab those recruits, and even though the Oklahoma State Cowboys are at the very forefront of the recruiting trail right now, Sanderson’s squad is lurking dangerously. Guys like Trey Kibe and Alex Facundo committed to PSU over the course of the season and the dominoes will keep falling.

7. The Sleeping Dragon

Opposite side of the same coin: in addition to the new recruits set to join the ranks over the next couple of years, the Nittany Lions have a ton of talent already in State College and ready to join the lineup. 

Back in November at the Clarion Open, a group of waiting-in-the-ranks Nittany Lions showed out. Joe Lee, Carter Starocci, Michael Beard, and Terrell Barraclough all made noise at the tournament and are just getting better. Don’t forget about Brady Berge, either, who wrestled some but ended up missing the rest of the year for health reasons.

They’re always going to be good, and that includes 2020-21.

6. Nick Lee vs Luke Pletcher

One of the many terrible things about the cancellation of the 2020 NCAA Wrestling Championships in Minneapolis was missing out on a possible Nick Lee vs Luke Pletcher bout for the title. The two split their competitions this year, with Lee winning in the OSU vs PSU dual and Pletcher taking the conference title at the Big Ten Championships, but you just know those two were on a collision course at 141 in Minneapolis. 

5. Ohio State’s Loss . . .

. . . is Penn State’s gain. Gilman wasn’t the only defection to the Nittany Lions this year, as a bigger domino (in terms of NCAA wrestling) fell when Greg Kerkvliet, the No. 1 recruit in the class of 2019, left Ohio State to join Sanderson and co. 

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Kerkvliet gives Penn State an absolutely terrifying option at heavyweight, and makes that weight class as a whole look pretty dang riveting for next year — and the best guys in the country are all gonna be throwing down in the Big Ten: Kerkvliet for Penn State, Gable Steveson for Minnesota, Mason Parris for Michigan, and Tony Cassioppi for Iowa.

We’re here for it.

4. The Rise Of RBY

Don’t look now, but 133 is arguably going to be the most loaded weight class in all of college wrestling next year, even more so than 285. It’s so loaded that Roman Bravo-Young, who was a legitimate threat to win the national title this year, is ranked fourth in the country next year. With SeaBass potentially wrestling here and the return of Daton Fix and Stevan Micic, guys like Austin DeSanto and RBY are suddenly on the outside looking in. 

Still, though, RBY had a heck of a year, losing only two times: once to Seth Gross by a slim 6-5 margin, and once to SeaBass in the Big Ten final 7-2. He also beat DeSanto two times, once in the freak injury-default at Carver-Hawkeye — a result that almost tipped the entire dual in Penn State’s favor — and once at the Big Ten Championships, a tight bout which you can rewatch here:

3. Lineup Chaos

The team race changed definitively when the Penn State lineup, in effect, switched out Anthony Cassar and Kyle Conel for Aaron Brooks and Shakur Rasheed. As the incredibly awesome David Bray explained back in February, that swing was gigantic, and it basically meant that (as I say below) the Nittany Lions went from potentially the favorite to needing four national titles and breakout performances from others to catch Iowa. 

2. The Streak Is Broken

The single day that brought home the “Whoa, could Penn State be vulnerable?” question was November 23, 2019, when the Nittany Lions waltzed into Tempe, Arizona, with a 60-dual winning streak on the line to take on Zahid Valencia and company. News flash: they did not leave with that streak still intact. Bray wrote some wonderful match notes if you want to relive the dual in written form. CP wrote a piece about six takeaways from the dual, including some good thoughts on duals in general.

In one sense, the loss to Arizona State was meaningless. There were some fluky things about it (Penn State forfeited to Zahid), plus Kyle Conel lost to drop the dual. And in general, duals don’t have any say on the national title race. So Penn State’s approach didn’t really change afterward.

In another sense, riding a 60-dual streak is amazing, and if you’re a Penn State fan it’s not something you wanted to see put to an end. 

1. Can Penn State Upset Iowa?

Here’s the completed arc of this narrative: At the beginning of the year, Penn State was probably on track to repeat; by the middle of the year, there was chaos to the lineup and questions about what the heck was going to happen; at the end of the year, Iowa was the prohibitive favorite.

Even so, the Nittany Lions had a fighting chance. RBY, Nick Lee, Vincenzo Joseph, and Mark Hall were all either title threats or title favorites. Who knows exactly what Aaron Brooks and Shakur Rasheed could’ve gotten done? What sort of sorcery could Cael produce?

These questions, like all the questions in March 2020, will remain unanswered.