The NCAA wrestling season is officially underway. But as we know by now, the sport's traditional early October start date could become a thing of the past if the changes proposed by the National Wrestling Coaches Association's Blue Ribbon Task Force's (BRTF) are carried out by the NCAA.

The task force's proposal included a new approach to everything from the Division I schedule to the format of the postseason. Here's a look at the changes that may be in store in college wrestling's near future.

What Can Change?

Wrestling could become a one-semester spring sport, with the first day of practice moving from Oct. 10 to Nov. 10. In addition to the later start time, NWCA coaches are looking to add a 16-team NCAA Dual Meet Championship that would take place after the individual NCAA tournament.

According to the summary of action meeting notes obtained by FloWrestling, "The BRTF unanimously supported the concept of maintaining the NCAA Individual Championship on the existing weekend and for the establishment of a standalone NCAA Dual meet team championship to be concluded on or near April 22nd."

Furthermore, when it came to making wrestling a one-semester sport, "The BRTF unanimously supported wrestling moving to become a spring semester sport and for the membership to consider this legislatively. With the first day of competition occurring following the fall semester final exams. (Based on the 2017-2018 academic calendar 5 schools are done by 12/9. 46 more are done by 12/16. 24 more are done by 12/22. The only school not done by 12/22 is Princeton. The thinking is Princeton could apply for a waiver to the rule.)"

Along with these changes, NWCA coaches also asked for a recruiting dead period around the NCAA tournament and the NWCA coaches convention. This was a unanimous decision as well. This could very well be implemented immediately.

The Dual Championships & Who Gets In

The NCAA Dual Championship would consist of 16 teams. Nine teams would get automatic qualifying bids into the tournament, including the eight conference champions. The additional AQ bid would come from the EIWA, where the Ivy league teams would be considered to be their own conference which would bring the total to nine AQ teams.

The other half of the field would come from the NWCA coaches poll rankings. The seven highest-ranked non-automatic qualifying teams would get the at-large bid to the championships.

Here is a mock-up bracket of what the championships would have looked like if they took place last year. Seeding is based off of the USA Today/NWCA Coaches Rankings. Take a look at the USA Today/NWCA Coaches Rankings from Feb. 21, 2017, here.

Championship Format

NWCA deputy director Jim Fallis, who led the BRTF panel, said that Division I wrestling would share the same postseason format of other NCAA championship sports.

"There's a selection process and selection committee, and that's how it will work in wrestling," he said.

Once the 16-team field is set, the competition locations will also be announced, with the higher-seeded teams hosting the lower-seeded teams.

For instance, if we take a look at the bracket above you will see that the No. 1 seed is hosting the No. 16 in the first round and so on. This will hold true throughout the tournament until a team champion is crowned.

Past Problems Are No More

In the past it was no secret that some coaches have refused to wrestle against certain teams, a sentiment which last reared its head during "Orange-Gate 2016." With the new proposed format, those issues would disappear.

"That's the wonderful thing about an NCAA championship. Once you get into an NCAA championship, you are -- as a member -- are mandated to do whatever it is," Fallis said. "There is too much prestige and too many rules that prevent you from saying you don't want to go against another team. That doesn't happen at the NCAA level because that governing body has legislative power and they have fine powers."

Fallis also had this to say about the issues the NWCA faced with the championship format of the past.

"What we went through as a coaches association trying to run this thing, was we had no legislative power, had no penalty powers, it was extremely challenging," he said. "But the other nice thing about this, at this point in time, it's about trying to win a national championship. It doesn't do you any good to say 'I don't want to go against them.' If you don't, you just forfeit that match and your chance is gone. You don't have a chance to win the national championship anymore."

Reasoning For Proposed Changes?

Certainly, every fan of wrestling wants the sport to grow, and that was in the back of the mind of every panel member during the BRTF's discussions. However, the main objectives were "to improve student-athlete welfare, student-athlete experience, and academic performance," according to Fallis.

"The research that we were able to gather showed that one semester student athletes do better academically than two semester student athletes," Fallis said. "Once that was clear, we focused on the other two points of student-athlete welfare and experience."

It was the conclusion of Fallis and the task force that moving the wrestling season to the spring would help to reduce the stress on these athletes.

"Our student-athletes need more time to acclimate to the academic rigors of college life," Fallis said.

On the competition side of things, the BRTF's focus was on how to build a bigger fan base with the addition of the dual meet championships.

"Wrestling fans already know how great it is to watch two hours of championship competition," he said. "If we can mirror the championship format that the casual fan is familiar with it could help increase that fan base."

The Details

As of right now there is no set timetable for when -- or if -- any of these proposed changes will take effect. Fallis said there are many more discussions that need to take place before wrestling adds another trophy and a later start.

"It has to go in front of a lot more committees," he said. "If I had to venture a guess, I'd say that it could pick up more speed to possibly be implemented in 2019-20, but it could also take longer certainly."