For various reasons, in the leadup to Fargo this year it seems there has been more talk than usual about the team race in Junior men's freestyle. Illinois is the defending champ; it ran away with it last year, scoring 82 points to outscore second-place Ohio (37 pts.) and third-place Iowa (36 pts.) combined.

So far already, we've done articles on the last 10 years of team champs, as well as one detailing all of the currently ranked wrestlers entered for a few power states. The usual suspects are involved: Illinois, Pennsylvania (the 2016 team champs), Ohio (runners-up in 2015 and 2017, and New Jersey (team champs in 204).

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However, on today's FloWrestling Radio Live, the 300th episode of FRL, we realized the "Interstate Skirmish" article did not include graduated seniors. Over the past four years, there have been 23 stop sign winners who were graduated seniors, so they can factor into the team race heavily.

While making our picks for the team crown, it occurred to me to take the placements from Willie's preview and assign the team points to them for each state. Scoring is very straightforward: 8 for first, 7 for second, 6 for third, etc. Below is a breakdown for the top five teams.

Among historical power states, neither Minnesota nor Oklahoma is projected to finish in the top eight. Iowa was not mentioned in the power states article, in large part due to the strength of its graduate contingent.

Now, this is just one man's opinion. But, he wrote the article, did all the research, and does the high school rankings, so we used his predictions as a proxy. It's harder to do it using just rankings since the seniors have been removed for a few months, so it would be comparing two different sets of rankings. Lastly, there will assuredly be bracket busters, upsets, and dark horses placing.

Make sure you're checking team scores in FloArena, and be sure to tune in to FloZone for constant updates on the team race.

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