Cael Sanderson and company did it again, folks.

Penn State wrestling won its fifth consecutive national championship on Saturday and the 13th in 16 seasons under Sanderson. For the third straight year, they broke the scoring record, and even with Oklahoma State building something special in Stillwater, the Nittany Lions won by 50 points.

It’s not at the front of mind when thinking about the dominance you see on the mat that it’s the ecosystem behind the scenes that makes them as good as they are. Everyone in that room has extreme talent, and Penn State is in a startling position that they could honestly field a second team and have them be more than competitive at NCAAs.

So what if they did? What if the next-best 10 wrestlers got a chance to compete? To make it more fun, let’s ignore redshirts who have several talented wrestlers sitting out to preserve eligibility.

125 Pounds – Nate Desmond

On the official roster, the only other 125-pound wrestler is Branden Wentzel, a former Penn State recruit who transferred to Lock Haven but returned for the spring semester as depth at the weight class. In his one season at Lock Haven, he went 1-8 and 0-2 in the MAC Championships. He would not come close to qualifying for the NCAA Tournament.

But there was one other Nittany Lion to wrestle at 125 this season, and that was the only person who can say they beat undefeated national champion Luke Lilledahl in 2025-26, and that’s Nate Desmond.

The true freshman turned heads in November when he went 4-0 at the Black Knight Invitational and knocked off Lilledahl with a late takedown in a 5-3 decision. Because the NCAA does not count matches between teammates, the match does not count on either of their records, but it did happen.

Since then, Desmond has not wrestled at the weight, using the remainder of his four dates in a redshirt season, filling in for an injured Aaron Nagao and later a banged-up Braeden Davis at 141, going 4-0 in the process with a win over then-No. 26 Dylan Ragusin, a former All-American.

Because we don’t have another viable candidate at 125, we’ll go against Cael Sanderson’s word that Desmond likely won’t be able to make 125 again and put him here. After all, if he’s ever going to be able to do it again, it’ll be as a true freshman. With his wins over Lilledahl and NCAA qualifier Cooper Flynn, he’d be able to hold his own against the nation’s best.

133 Pounds – Kyison Garcia

The injury to Aaron Nagao that prompted his retirement in February mucked up the lighter weights and thinned a depth chart that was absolutely stacked earlier in the season. While most of these guys are now listed at 141, Kyison Garcia has actually wrestled at 133 this season.

Garcia filled in at 133 three times last season, with Davis out injured, and went 1-2. This season, he wrestled at the Black Knight Invitational at 133 and went 4-2 before jumping up to 141 for the Southern Scuffle and Patriot Last Chance Open, and also went 4-2. He faced just one NCAA qualifier along the way, losing to TK Davis by a 9-1 major decision at the Southern Scuffle in early January.

141 Pounds – Masanosuke Ono

The only backup on this list without a folkstyle match just might be the best of them all.

How is that possible? If you’re not already aware, Penn State has a world champion freestyle wrestler training with them and redshirting, figuring to debut in folkstyle in 2026-27 at either 133 or 141. Ono won at the 2024 World Championships at 61 kg (134.5 lbs), but has wrestled as high as 65 kg (143.3 lbs), and we’ll project him at this weight, particularly because when he joins the lineup next year, Marcus Blaze will already have 133 down.

It’s extremely hard to forecast what he would do in folkstyle until we see him wrestle in a match. He has wins over Blaze and Olympic medalist Spencer Lee in freestyle, but it’s a much different style that leaves Ono vulnerable when not wrestling in neutral, where his ability is unmatched. He could either be an All-American or go 0-2 if he gets a bad draw with someone who can muck up a match and keep him on the mat.

149 Pounds – Connor Pierce

The downside to Penn State’s dominance is that some wrestlers won’t get the opportunity to show just how good they are because they happen to be in the same room as one of the best in the country at the same time. It happened to Terrell Barraclough, David Evans, Alex Facundo, and Zack Ryder over the last three seasons, but all four were able to transfer to new opportunities at Utah Valley and Oklahoma State.

Could Connor Pierce do the same in 2026-27? Pierce is one of, if not the best, backup at 149 in the country, but will enter his redshirt senior season once again behind National Finalist Shayne Van Ness. There’s no doubt that if he got an opportunity to start, he would run with it.

Wrestling at three open tournaments in 2025-26, Pierce went 11-1 with his only official loss coming to All-American Cross Wasilewski at the Journeyman Classic in a close, 4-2 decision. He also scored wins over NCAA qualifiers Maxwell Petersen and Brock Herman, winning 8-2 and 13-7, respectively, with the latter coming to win the Southern Scuffle.

It’s unlikely he would be an All-American, but the fact that he was nearly getting bonus points against the No. 19 and No. 23 seeds means he would fare pretty well in wrestlebacks if he went out early. He also held Van Ness to a 14-7 decision in the Black Knight Invitational back in November.

157 Pounds – Tyler Kasak

As sure a thing as anyone on this list, Tyler Kasak took third at the 2025 NCAA Championships and redshirted this season to make way for true freshman PJ Duke, who replicated his finish at the national tournament.

While the future is partially unclear with Kasak returning for his redshirt junior year, we know that he can thrive at 157 pounds. After bumping up a weight following the return of Van Ness from injury in 2024-25, he went 23-2, only losing via injury default to Ethen Miller and a 5-4 decision to now-165 All-American Joey Blaze in the NCAA Quarterfinals.

Consider this. Antrell Taylor is a national champion and two-time finalist, and Kasak pinned him and won a 9-3 decision. He majored Brandon Cannon, who spent much of the season ranked No. 1 before finishing third at the NCAA’s. He knocked off both No. 3 Meyer Shapiro and No. 6 Jude Swisher in last year’s NCAA Tournament. While it’s unclear how he would fare against the freshmen, including national champion Landon Robideau, Kasak is a lock to be an All-American and might even win it all. In fact, his biggest competition might be the guy who beat him out for the job this season.

165 Pounds – Joe Sealey

Mitchell Mesenbrink’s listed backup is redshirt junior Sam Beckett, who’s impressive in his own right. But if we’re talking about upside, there might not be more upside than a former top prospect bumping up a weight in Joe Sealey.

Both Sealey and Kasak need to be in this lineup; the question is who has to bump up. Kasak experienced a recent bump in weight, while Sealey wrestled his senior year of high school at 165, so that’s what we’ll go by. In that senior year, Sealey went 19-1 with 16 bonus victories and won a state title in Pennsylvania in 2024. His two most notable matches that year? Beating now-Oklahoma State 165-pounder Dee Lockett and losing in tiebreakers to Iowa wrestler Angelo Ferrari.

As for what he’s done at 157 in college, Sealey would probably contend for All-American status there if he were at the NCAA Championships. He pinned Columbia’s Kai Owen, who made it to the blood round, and NCAA qualifier Jaivon Jones en route to a 12-1 season. His only official loss came to NCAA qualifier Jimmy Harrington, while he battled Duke to a 2-1 decision in an unofficial match at the Black Knight Invitational.

He’s a question mark, but if he was able to get reps at this weight, he’s talented enough to compete. It would be a tough ask to put him here all of a sudden, though.

174 Pounds – Will Henckel

Levi Haines wrapped up a spectacular collegiate career on Saturday when he won his second national championship, cementing a career that saw him win four Big Ten titles and finish top-three in four consecutive seasons at two different weights. There are several options for replacing him, but his backup, Will Henckel, is certainly a candidate.

Henckel, as a true freshman, went 9-0 in his redshirt season, participating in both the Black Knight Invitational and Southern Scuffle. He held down Haines to a 4-0 decision in their unofficial match while rolling through several strong wrestlers at the weight, including a 7-3 decision over NCAA qualifier Nick Fine, the No. 16 seed, who Haines beat via technical fall in the NCAA Championships.

Henckel’s other strong wins include victories over Army’s Cooper Haase, Duke’s Aiden Wallace, and Penn’s Liam Carlin, all of whom finished with a winning percentage over 60% on the year (Wallace went 25-6 and narrowly missed out on an at-large bid to the NCAA’s).

184 Pounds – Asher Cunningham

Rocco Welsh is entrenched as the team’s 184-pound wrestler for the foreseeable future after finishing runner-up to Minnesota’s Max McEnelly in Cleveland on Saturday, the only match he lost all season. His backup is another freshman, one with family ties to Penn State and one who could probably make noise very soon if able to wrestle.

Cunningham, whose father, Casey, is an assistant on Sanderson’s staff, went 7-0 as a true freshman while preserving his redshirt. While he did take an unofficial loss by major decision against Welsh at Black Knight, he went toe-to-toe with multiple NCAA qualifiers and came out on top.

He majored Cornell’s Christian Hansen, who was ranked No. 15 before a season-ending knee injury in January, and did the same to former NCAA qualifier Aaron Ayzerov. His most impressive feat, though, might be what he accomplished at the Southern Scuffle, knocking off American’s Caleb Campos, who would go on to place fourth at NCAAs in a 29-8 season that saw him beat the likes of Zack Ryder, Brian Soldano, and James Conway.

Cunningham, with a direct win over an All-American, could absolutely challenge for those honors if allowed to participate. Even if he falls short, being a true freshman means the sky is the limit.

197 Pounds – Connor Mirasola

Josh Barr had an extremely dominant season, which saw him breeze to his first national title. What some might forget, however, is that his season started six weeks late, making his season debut on December 20 after a rib injury sustained at the U23 World Championships had sidelined him. Until then, it was Connor Mirasola who filled in and looked exceptional doing it.

The redshirt freshman already looked good in his redshirt season in 2024-25, defeating two future NCAA qualifiers, but took it to another level when suddenly tasked with facing No. 8 DJ Parker in his dual meet debut on November 14 at the Bryce Jordan Center. He not only beat the three-time NCAA qualifier, but majored him, immediately vaulting him into the top-10 on Intermat’s rankings.

He would continue to dominate through the Black Knight Invitational and through the next three dual meets, notching a pair of tech falls and pins to improve to 6-0 ahead of a huge bout with Wyoming’s Joey Novak. That match would prove to be too much, as the eventual fourth-place finisher beat Mirasola by major decision, and Barr would return six days later.

But with his win over Parker, the No. 8 seed at the national tournament, and another over a former NCAA qualifier in Wolfgang Frable, he would absolutely be able to pick up points for the backup team, even if he would fall short of All-American status.

285 Pounds – Lucas Cochran

Lucas Cochran is more than talented enough to qualify for the NCAA Tournament. Unfortunately, the senior has sat behind some studs in all five years in State College. Starting his career at 197, he sat behind Max Dean and Aaron Brooks before losing wrestle-offs to both Barr and Cole Mirasola in the last two years and will finish his career with only four dual meet matches and zero postseason appearances.

And it’s not because he isn’t good enough. In his lone season as Penn State’s backup heavyweight, he knocked off Columbia’s Vincent Mueller, Army’s Brady Colbert, and Brown’s Alex Semenenko, all NCAA qualifiers who were seeded between 15 and 25.

He would’ve had even more opportunities to knock off NCAA qualifiers if he had not been forced to medically forfeit his way out of the Southern Scuffle after winning his first three matches. This is someone who deserved to wrestle in Cleveland, but was buried on a stacked depth chart.

How Would They Do

Here’s the hard part. With very incomplete schedules and multiple wrestlers who didn’t wrestle at all in 2025-26, it’s hard to tell where they’d place, let alone do in a national tournament. But let’s try anyway, using WrestleStats’ comparison feature:

125: Nate Desmond – DNP
133: Kyison Garcia – DNQ
141: Masanosuke Ono – DNP
149: Connor Pierce – R12
157: Tyler Kasak – 4th
165: Joe Sealey – DNP
174: Will Henckel – 4th
184: Asher Cunningham – 7th
197: Connor Mirasola – 7th
285: Lucas Cochran – 4th

I used every wrestler’s best win and transcribed it into the NCAA Championships bracket and asked WrestleStat to simulate the matches, which produced some wild results. For Desmond, Ono, and Sealey, I had to do some personal comparisons due to them being listed as different weights in WrestleStat.

Five All-Americans. I’ll dumb down the brackets to shorten an already extremely long article:

• Desmond draws All-American Nico Provo in the first round and loses, but wins one consolation bout against Wisconsin’s Nicolar Rivera.
• Ono is extremely hard to project, so I put him in Braeden Davis’ spot and essentially had him do the same as he did, even if they are stylistically two completely different wrestlers.
• Pierce gets a rough draw in having to face his lone loss, Wasilewski, in the second round. He wrestles back to the blood round before losing to Oklahoma State’s Casey Swiderski, who gave Van Ness an extremely tough fight in the quarterfinals.
• Kasak is seeded at No. 2 due to his head-to-head wins over Shapiro and Taylor from last season. He gets surprisingly upset by Ty Watters in the semifinal, but rebounds to beat Brandon Cannon and wrestle for third… against PJ Duke. Funny how that works.
• Sealey was impossible to place, so I put him in the pigtail, had him win that, and lose to Mesenbrink. He goes 1-1 in consolation.
• Henckel beats Fine again in the 16-17 matchup before running into Haines in the second round. After losing, he knocks off former teammate Alex Facundo, MJ Gaitan, and Danny Wask before losing the third-place match to Carson Kharchla.
• Cunningham gets a brutal draw and loses to Angelo Ferrari in the second round. He goes 5-2 overall and places seventh after losing to another former teammate in Zack Ryder.
• Connor Mirasola was in line to face Barr in the quarterfinal, but went down to Angelo Posada before that. He beats Camden McDanel in the blood round, but loses to Gabe Arnold and settles for seventh with a win over Branson John.
• Cochran doesn’t quite make the blood round due to a bad draw. He faces Christian Carroll, who beat Cole Mirasola twice, in the first round and then, after winning two consolation bouts, runs into Mirasola.

Tallying up all the wins (and a few bonus points), they accumulated 47 team points, which would place them 10th, not counting the points they’d take away from other teams. Now, what happens if we had Penn State field two, more even lineups? You might see unparalleled dominance.