By Brian Reinhardt
USA Wrestling

A new collegiate season starts this weekend, a bit of a warm-up weekend before a fuller schedule next weekend. Starting Saturday, Oct. 31, and continuing throughout the weekend, 11 duals and six tournaments will take place across the country.

Dual Action Starts Saturday 

The first two duals of the new season will take place on Saturday.

Hofstra will host Sacred Heart at 2 p.m., while Wyoming will host Western Wyoming at 4 p.m. Both duals will be streamed on FloWrestling.

Wyoming will be an exciting team to watch this year. The Cowboys finished 12th at the 2026 NCAA Championships, the highest team finish since 1967, and return All-Americans at 184 pounds (Eddie Neitenbach), 197 pounds (Joey Novak) and heavyweight (Christian Carroll).

Sunday’s slate finds nine more duals.

A trio of Big Ten schools will toe the line in duals. Michigan makes the trip to VMI, Purdue will host Kent State and Wisconsin faces Bloomsburg. Three Big 12 schools also open their campaigns in their home gyms: North Dakota State with Mary, Oklahoma with Northeastern State and Iowa State with Bucknell.

For Iowa State, former Iowa multiple-time national champion Brent Metcalf makes his head coaching debut. The Cyclones start the year ranked eighth in FloWrestling’s Tournament Rankings, led by brothers #3 Evan Frost at 141 pounds and #11 Jacob Frost at 149 pounds. One of his new additions, freshman heavyweight Coby Merrill, just earned a bronze medal for the U.S. at the U23 World Championships.

Out at CSU Bakersfield, the Roadrunners, American and Central Michigan will all face each other as all three schools get two duals.

Bring on the Tournaments 

If you prefer bracketed tournaments, there will be six to choose from this weekend: the Clarion Open, the Mercyhurst Invitational, the Princeton Open, Virginia Tech’s Southeast Open, the Navy Classic and Oklahoma State’s Cowboy Invitational.

With the NCAA’s new 5-for-5 eligibility rules, there will be no more redshirting of athletes or true freshmen having only five dates of competition (outside of second-semester open tournaments). Last year, if a true freshman wanted to compete in a first-semester tournament, it counted towards their five dates. What will the fields look like for these early-season tournaments?

NWCA Matchups are Set 

The annual NWCA All-Star Classic will take place on Tuesday, November 24 from Penn State’s Rec Hall. The event will be streamed on FloWrestling, and all 10 Division I men’s matches have been announced.

125 pounds: #5 Eddie Ventresca (Virginia Tech) vs. #9 Ezekiel Witt (North Dakota State)
133 pounds: #3 Aaron Seidel (Virginia Tech) vs. #8 TK Davis (Gardner-Webb)
141 pounds: #1 Luke Stanich (Lehigh) vs. #2 Bo Bassett (Virginia Tech)
149 pounds: #3 Shayne Van Ness (Penn State) vs. #4 Caleb Henson (Virginia Tech)
157 pounds: #6 Ty Watters (West Virginia) vs. #7 Collin Gaj (Virginia Tech)
165 pounds: #5 Cam Catrabone (Michigan) vs. #7 Paddy Gallagher (Oklahoma)
174 pounds: #4 Beau Mantanona (Michigan) vs. #6 Danny Wask (Navy)
184 pounds: #2 Rocco Welsh (Penn State) vs. #5 Brock Mantanona (Michigan)
197 pounds: #1 Josh Barr (Penn State) vs. #3 Stephen Little (Little Rock)
285 pounds: #6 Braxton Amos (Wisconsin) vs. Connor Mirasola (Penn State)

Editor’s Note: Weekend schedules were compiled by Earl Smith of InterMat. All times listed are Eastern.