So here they are, FloWrestling’s first installment of dual rankings. Our tournament rankings served as a pretty useful framework for these. They’re a rough guage of team strength. With that framework in place we then looked at all the dual results from the year and this is what we came up with and below you'll find detailed explanations for the rankings below.

The ranking in parenthesis represents the teams current ASICS tournament team ranking.

1 - Penn State (1)
2 - Iowa (3)
3 - NC State (7)
4 - OK State (2)
5 - Ohio State (4)
6 - Virginia Tech (5)
7 - Nebraska (9)
8 - Oklahoma (17)
9 - Rutgers (22)
10 - Cornell (6)
11 - Missouri (8)
12 - Illinois (10)
13 - Michigan (11)
14 - Lehigh (18)
15 - North Carolina (14)
16 - Virginia (28)
17 - Old Dominion (12)
18 - Minnesota (13)
19 - Stanford (16)
20 - Central Michigan (25)


The beauty and simplicity of dual rankings is that each result stands on its own. There’s no “this guy was out” type of scenario that factors in. Having quality depth when the inevitable injury occurs is part of being a great dual team. Honestly, dual rankings are tough to do this early in the season and should be taken with a grain of salt. So many of the big dogs haven’t hit (though we’re fortunate that quite a few have already, that's not always the case) that you have to lean more on tournament rankings than you’d like.

Penn State is the tournament #1 and has been for most of this year, they haven’t beaten the elite yet apart from VT, but it being so early, their the #1 til someone proves otherwise. Iowa gets the 2 spot with a very high tournament ranking and the big win over Oklahoma State at Kinnick. Coming in at 3 is NC State who beat Oklahoma State as well as Minnesota.

OSU, Ohio State and VT have all held their own with losses only to teams ranked ahead of them. Ohio State is still undefeated at this point.  Nebraska gets a bump with their win over Cornell. They’ve also knocked off Lehigh and Princeton this season.

Oklahoma has proven to be a phenomenal dual team with wins over both Michigan and Rutgers. Rutgers is another major performer in the dual realm. Their wins over Cornell, UNC, UNI and Oregon State earn them a top 10 ranking.

Missouri and Illinois fall in line as undefeated dual teams without the wins to jump a Cornell or Rutgers. Michigan dips some with their loss to Oklahoma. Lehigh is a potential dark horse to eventually crack the top 10. They have only fell to Nebraska so far in duals and being four spots higher in these rankings than tournament reflect this teams dual strength.  They have wins over Minnesota, Princeton, Pittsburgh, Rider and Edinboro.  UNC holds their spot based on wins over Minnesota and having only lost to Rutgers. UVA is a team over-performing their tournament ranking. This is largely in part due to their win over ODU, the 12th ranked tournament team.

For the first time in a long time Minnesota is actually a better tournament team than dual team. This will balance out over the year as their guys continue to improve. They’ve lost to four quality teams in NC State, UNC, Lehigh and Oklahoma State. Stanford checks in at 19 and CMU with their wins over Rider (a VERY sneaky dual team with wins over Northwestern, Utah Valley and Kent State) and Purdue. 

Hit me with questions/comments at christian.pyles@flosports.tv or on twitter @CPyles8.