Division I Team Recruiting 2015 Class rankings

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If you need a refresher on on how these work you can see the first set of rankings, remember these rankings are done with the help of AWP and Earl at D1.

1 Arizona State

Recruits: #1 Anthony Valencia, #4 Zahid Valencia, #10 Lance Benick, #16 Josh Shields, and #21 Josh Maruca.

This should be no surprise that they are still sitting at the top. Even though Anthony got beat at Who’s Number One, Zahid’s win over Martin showed that this has the makings of a really great class.

2 Ohio State

Recruits: #3 Myles Martin, #7 Ke-Shawn Hayes, #75 Jose Rodriguez, and #94 Kollin Moore

Ohio State shot up the list, and that is thanks to the addition of two top ten wrestlers Martin and Hayes. Both Martin and Hayes lost at the Who’s Number One event last weekend, but they are still top ten talents. Since they are the only other team with at least two top ten guys, they get the nod here.

3 Oklahoma State

Recruits: #6 Nick Piccinnini, #14 Joe Smith, #28 Kaid Brock, #44 Boo Lewallen, and #69 Lincoln Olson

Oklahoma State still has a really incredible amount of talent in this year’s class. What is crazy is that Kaid Brock beat his future teammate Piccinnini (3-2) and Joe Smith lost a tight battle with Larry Early (7-5 OT). Add in two additional top 100 guys, and John Smith has a really strong class.

4 Minnesota

Recruits: #9 Robert Stevenson, #15 Fredy Stroker, and #23 Larry Early.

Minnesota drops a couple of spots, but all three of these wrestlers were at the Who’s Number One event, and both Early and Stevenson came out victorious. Stroker lost a tight battle with Cenzo Joseph, but all three looked impressive. The real reason for Minnesota’s drop in the rankings is that Oklahoma State (who was good to begin with) and Ohio State made some big additions that pushed them up.

5 Michigan

Recruits: #2 Logan Massa, #26 Austin Assad, and #53 Myles Amine

Michigan has done little (only adding Myles Amine) since last time our rankings were put out, but with the #2 ranked wrestler as the anchor of their class it holds them steadily in the top five.

6 Virginia

Recruits: #11 Fox Baldwin, #24 Sam Krivus, #48 Cameron Harrell, and HM Corbin Allen

Virginia took a tumble from last time, and again it has little to do with their wrestlers, they just haven’t made any additions so other schools are catching them. Since this is an Iowa based website, I can’t help but hope we see new Hawkeye commit Alex Marinelli get a chance to knock off Virginia’s top recruit Baldwin at the Super 32 in November.

7 Penn State

Recruits: #5 Vincenzo Joseph and #52 Kellan Stout

Penn State joins the rankings with a bang as the added two top recruits since last month. Joseph defended his #1 status this past weekend, and Stout appears to be a fantastic upperweight addition. With PSU having such a loaded 2014 class, it will be interesting to see how many more top 100s they will add to this year’s class.

8 Northern Iowa

Recruits: #27 Taylor Lujan, #36 Max Thomsen, #41 Bryce Steiert, and #96 Paden Moore

Sadly UNI is also part of the fall out with four top ten wrestlers committing in the last month. They added a really good Paden Moore this past week, and could have potentially four starters 149-174 with this class alone. Panther Train keeps rolling.

9 Missouri

Recruits: #29 Dylan Wisman, #35 Jaydin Clayton, #58 Will Roark and (rank to be updated) Larry Fortuna.

It’s crazy to look at how good Missouri’s class looks and they are all the way down here.

10 Iowa

Recruits: #12 Mike Kemerer, #59 Cash Wilcke

Iowa jumps into the top ten with the addition of Kemerer. This was much needed for Iowa as Wilcke appears to be a promising upperweight, but with so many starters departing after the season, he wasn’t going to be enough on his own to satisfy not only the fans, but future lineup concerns. Kemerer will also be at the Super 32 tournament, and should be interesting to see if he meets UNI commit Max Thomsen.

Rounding out the rest: Illinois (#17 Xavier Montalvo, #39 Kris Williams, and HM Carver James), West Virginia (#31 Pat Duggan, #33 Keegan Moore, and #98 Devin Brown), Indiana (#55 Elijah Oliver, #67 Devin Skatzka and #89 Tommy Cash), Bucknell (#13 Zach Kelly), South Dakota State (#49 Anthony Cefolo and #54 Brett Bye), Iowa State (#46 Markus Simmons and #80 Colston DiBlasi), Virginia Tech (#18 David McFadden), North Caronlina (#25 AC Headlee), Lehigh (#42 Jordan Kutler and #98 Kent Lane), Harvard (#66 LJ Barlow and #88 Tommy Dutton), Old Dominion (#83 Brandon James and #84 Ben Schram), Rutgers (#30 Ronnie Gentile), Maryland (#43 Josh Ugalde), Oklahoma (#45 Davion Jeffries), Purdue (#47 Nate Limmex), Buffalo (#72 Tommy Forte), North Dakota State (#78 Andrew Fogerty), Wisconsin (#87 Eli Stickley), and Ohio( HM/#70 AWP Cameron Kelly)

Additional notes:

-Rankings were as of 12:00 PM 10/21, any commits after this time were not considered.
-I wanted to include Iowa’s Glynn, Woodard, Glosser, Shaw, and Erickson (and ISU’s Straw), but I don’t have a way to measure unranked wrestlers from one state against another. So while I am extremely excited about all unranked wrestlers and their potential, I can’t account for other state’s guys who are in a similar situation. In the end I don’t feel I wouldn’t have enough data to make a valid conclusion.
–West Virginia sitting out of the top ten seems strange as well, but I couldn’t do a three-way tie with 10th, and in my head I could reasonably say that I would take the Illinois/Missouri trio over the West Virginia trio.
–Iowa State still has the makings of a good class. Simmons and DiBlasi are a good start, and I think they will have a chance to continue to move up.