Keegan O'Toole began drawing praise from nearly the moment his collegiate wrestling career began last month.

The Missouri true freshman earned the starting role at 165 pounds and opened the season with four straight wins, including pinning South Dakota State's Cade DeVos, a two-time Iowa State champion, in his Tigers debut. A week later, he decisioned Wyoming's Cole Moody, also a three-time Wyoming state champion, 12-6.

"Keegan O'Toole is good," tweeted Bloodround Wrestling podcaster Kevin Claunch following the Jan. 8 match.

The 165-pounder improved to 6-0 nine days after that by handing Iowa State's Grant Stotts, also a two-time Iowa state champion, his first loss of the season, pinning the sophomore in 4:19. 

The outcome prompted Stotts to pound the mat with his fist afterward and prompted a tweet from Grant Leeth, O'Toole's senior teammate and a 2018 All-American.

"Keegan O'Toole is so good," he wrote. 

O'Toole, the nation's No. 2 Class of 2020 recruit, and fellow true freshman Rocky Elam (No. 14, Class of 2020) are a major reason Missouri finished unbeaten in duals (10-0) for the third time in eight seasons and perfect in the Mid-American Conference (4-0) for the fourth straight year.

Both are unbeaten and nationally-ranked. O'Toole (9-0) is 19th and No. 13 in the first NCAA Coaches Rankings released earlier this week. Elam (7-0) is No. 22 at 197 pounds and 14th in the coaches rankings. 

Oklahoma State is only other Division 1 team with two unbeaten and ranked true freshman starters -- Dustin Plott (No. 14, 174) and AJ Ferrari (No. 14, 197).

The Missouri pair will have to overcome fierce competition to remain undefeated if they wrestle at Sunday's Cowboy Challenge at Oklahoma State. West Virginia, Wyoming and Central Oklahoma are also scheduled to be there.

Here is a closer look at O'Toole and Elam as the season enters its final stretch.

KEEGAN O'TOOLE

Hailing from the same high school that produced Ben and Max Askren (Arrowhead in Hartland Wisconsin), O'Toole was awarded the Junior Hodge Trophy last spring after becoming the 18th wrestler to win four individual Wisconsin state titles and only the third to do so in Division 1.

In all, seven of his nine wins have come via technical fall (four) or pin (three). O'Toole's most impressive victory so far is a 5-1 decision over 2020 NCAA qualifier Izzak Olejnik (Northern Illinois) which helped him earn MAC Wrestler of the Week honors on Jan. 27.

Sophomore Peyton Mocco, a 2020 NCAA qualifier who has No. 20 in last season's final rankings, started at 165 last season, but O'Toole's success bumped him to 174. That made a deep Missouri lineup even deeper.

He could face No. 5 Travis Wittlake (Oklahoma State) Sunday. Wittlake is also 9-0 and went 28-2 last season when he was an NCAA qualifier.

O'Toole tuned up for the season by winning the junior freestyle 70-kilogram championship at the UWW Junior and U23 Nationals in November. He was simply dominant, winning six shutout decisions by a combined 58-0 margin. 

Among those O'Toole defeated was Wyoming's Cooper Voorhees, a two-time South Dakota state champion who was 47-0 as a senior. 

O'Toole pinned all four opponents at the state tournament to finish his senior high school season at 49-0. He was the nation's top-ranked, 160-pounder and fourth in the pound-for-pound ratings. 

O'Toole won the final 111 matches of his prep career and, amazingly, the last 17 were via pin. He finished with a 110-5 high school record and was Wisconsin's Dave Schultz High School Excellence Award recipient.

O'Toole is also a four-time Fargo All-American with one championship and was named to the Cliff Keen All-America Dream Team last April. 

He also bested Ohio's Paddy Gallagher, currently No. 2 in the national high school pound-for-pound rankings, at the 2019 Who's #1 event.

ROCKY ELAM

The younger brother of Tigers' heavyweight starter Zach Elam is 7-0 with two pins, a technical fall and major decision. Rocky Elam is ranked second in the MAC.

His most impressive performance so far came against sixth-ranked Stephen Buchanan of Wyoming, a 2020 NCAA qualifier and two-time Wisconsin state champion. Elam won by injury default and was leading 3-1 at the time.

He has also beaten 2020 NCAA qualifier Landon Pelham  (Central Michigan). 

Elam will face extreme tests if he wrestles Sunday. He could meet Buchanan again and No. 7 Noah Adams (West Virginia). Don't forget Ferrari, who is 9-0 and beat Elam in the Senior Nationals 92-kilogram title match. 

Elam overcame NCAA qualifier and two-year starter Wyatt Koelling, who owns a 66-31 career record, for the starting role. Koelling was 24th in last season's final rankings. 

Elam was fifth at Senior Nationals, putting together an impressive string of wins. He began with a 10-0 blanking of two-time NCAA Division 3 champion Ryan Epps (Augsburg College) before shocking two-time All-American and 2019 NCAA runner-up Max Dean (Cornell) by the same score.

Elam was far from done, knocking off three-time All-American and four-time NCAA qualifier David McFadden (Virginia Tech), two-time All-American Brent Pfarr (Minnesota) and one-time All-American CJ Brucki (Central Michigan).

"Experience is the best teacher! I’m only improving," Elam tweeted following the tournament on Oct 17.

He was second at the UWW Junior and U23 Nationals the next month, beating 2020 NCAA qualifier Billy Janzer (Rutgers) and two-time Iowa state champion Zach Glazier (Iowa). 

Elam won a Missouri state championship as a senior and was the Central Region Dave Schultz High School Excellence Award recipient. He finished with a 156-16 high school record.