The wait will soon be over. We’ll all be inside Rec Hall for Penn State wrestling, and all will be right in the world in less than a month. Until then though, preseason rankings and storylines will need to hold us over.

Eight Penn State wrestlers cracked the top 25 of their respective weight classes in the preseason rankings from InterMat, including three No. 1s and seven top-five rankings. As the Nittany Lions prepare to chase their ninth national title in ten years, they will start the season as both the top-ranked dual and tournament team.

Vincenzo Joseph, Mark Hall, and Anthony Cassar will each start the season No. 1 at 165 lbs., 174 lbs., and 285 lbs., respectively.

Although all three have an NCAA title to their credit, Cassar is the only wrestler coming off a national title-winning season. Joseph and Hall both lost in the finals of the NCAA Championships but still hold the top spot due to a couple of fortunate draws. Virginia Tech’s Mekhi Lewis, the 165-lb. champ, is taking an Olympic redshirt and Arizona State’s Zahid Valencia, the 174-lb. champ, moved up to the 184 for this season.

The three seniors will anchor an otherwise young Penn State team that has a reasonable amount of question marks following the departures of three-time national champions Bo Nickal and Jason Nolf. Joseph, Hall, and Cassar return a total of five national titles and 213 wins among themselves.

Nick Lee enters the season No. 2 at 141 lbs. with two-time champ Yianni Diakomihalis of Cornell taking an Olympic redshirt and following the graduation of NCAA runner-up Joey McKenna. Last season as a sophomore, Lee made a big leap, going 31-5, wracking up 24 bonus-point wins, and placing fifth at NCAAs. Lee will start the season behind only Oklahoma’s Dom Demas, who beat him 13-9 in the consolation bracket of last year’s national tournament.

Roman Bravo-Young, Shakur Rasheed, and Kyle Conel are each ranked No. 3 at 133 lbs., 184 lbs., and 197 lbs., respectively.

Bravo-Young’s breakout freshman season ended on a high note with a 25-8 record and eighth-place finish at NCAAs. He sits behind a pair of Big Ten wrestlers in No. 1 Seth Gross, now of Wisconsin, and No. 2 Austin DeSanto of Iowa.

After entering NCAAs undefeated but failing to place, Rasheed will have plenty of eyes on him this season — especially with the medical redshirt he was granted this offseason. He’ll have his first major test of the season when he meets No. 1 Zahid Valencia of Arizona State in the teams’ November dual.

Conel, who transferred from Kent State to Penn State for his last year of eligibility, hasn’t wrestled in almost a year after suffering a season-ending injury last November. Still, though, the one-time third-place finisher is back at the top of the national rankings. The only wrestlers ahead of him are a pair of Bo Nickal pin victims: No. 2 Patrick Brucki of Princeton and No. 1 Kollin Moore of Ohio State, who Conel has also pinned before. With no elite wrestlers, 197 lbs. could be for Conel’s taking, which would crucial in Penn State’s title defense.

Brady Berge will start the season ranked No. 8 at 157 lbs. following a season where he split time with Jarod Verkleeren at 149 lbs. After an 18-2 start to the season, Berge lost three of his last five matches, taking sixth at Big Tens and failing to place at NCAAs.

The only weight classes Penn State doesn’t have a ranked wrestler at are 125 lbs. and 149 lbs. 125 is as up in the air as ever with Devin Schnupp and Brody Teske vying for the starting job, while Verkleeren seems to be the favorite at 149, after a strong start to the season last year while platooning with Berge. Whether 125 is as much of a liability as it has been the last couple seasons and if Verkleeren returns to his early-season pinning form will also be decisive factors in Penn State holding off a loaded Iowa team.