The upcoming NCAA season may only seem like a distant ship's smoke on the horizon during these long summer days, but that doesn't mean it's too early to start speculating about the 2017-18 season. Indeed, it is never too early to start speculating.

To get a better idea of what we might see next season, we took a look back at the 2017 NCAA Wrestling Championships. We compared all the Division I programs by how many team points were earned by their underclassmen to see who will be returning the most firepower for the 2018 tournament.

Teams 11-20 | No. 10 Virginia Tech | No. 9 Lehigh | No. 8 Iowa | No.7 Minnesota

No. 10 Virginia Tech Hokies:25.5 Points

Southwest Virginia's premier Division I program is having a transitional offseason, as Tony Robie was recently promoted from associate head coach to head wrestling coach, following the departure of Kevin Dresser to Iowa State.

Robie lost the anchors to his lineup, as multiple-time NCAA All-Americans Joey Dance at 125 and Ty Walz at 285 used up their final year of eligibility last season.

Robie will also have to make do without the services of two-time All-American Zach Epperly, who will not return to the team after he graduated despite having another year of eligibility. Sal Mastriani has also graduated, and is now an assistant at Brown; he had an eighth-place finish in St. Louis.

But the cupboard is far from empty for Robie and the Hokies faithful. Heading into the 2017-18 season, 25.5 of the 63.5 points scored in the 2017 tournament will be back.

WT	NAME	PTS
149	Solomon Chishko	12
184	Zack Zavatsky	1
197	Jared Haught	12.5

Additionally, the Hokies will welcome back David McFadden to their starting lineup. McFadden had an impressive redshirt season after earning All-American honors as a true freshman at the 2016 NCAA tournament. 

Also coming off redshirts for Virginia Tech are Kyle Norstrem and Andrew Dunn, whom the Hokies will count on to replace Dance and Walz at 125 and 285 pounds, respectively. 

Robie, along with new assistants Frank Molinaro and Jared Frayer, will need everyone firing on all cylinders, but there is enough talent returning to successfully navigate what could otherwise be a tricky transitional season. 

What gets emotions in Blacksburg running hot, hot, hot? How about Jared Haught, returning 197-pound All-American? You can watch him take out Penn State's Matt McCutheon in the NCAA quarterfinals in video below.



You can read up on teams 11-20 of our series by clicking here. 

We'll take a closer at the No. 9 team next, so stay tuned. Until then, stay comfortable but not necessarily numb, as we have plenty more content about the impending NCAA wrestling season on the way.