The best current rivalry in college wrestling gets renewed on Friday night in Happy Valley as Arizona State has made their way East to to face #1 Penn State.

Zahid Valencia and Mark Hall will meet for the first time (officially) outside of NCAAs, as their All-Star match does not count on their win-loss ledgers. It is also their first meeting with both having a national title, which makes this unusual as far as college rivalries go.

Mike Mal posed the question on twitter asking what is the best NCAA rivalry of all-time. I would posit that if Mark wins, this becomes the best one ever. First of all, because each guy will have an NCAA title. Second of all, because they've traded wins. Third, because not only have they traded wins, but each would have a win over the other AFTER the loser of said match already owns a national title.

What is the best individual NCAA rivalry of all time?

— Mike Malinconico (@_MikeMal_) December 12, 2018

Zahid carries the #1 ranking and a 43-match winning streak into this dual. It'll be the second time he's wrestled in Rec Hall, after falling twice to Kyle Dake in close matches this June at Final X. He's one of the most prolific scorers in college right now, always staying on the offensive. But Hall kept him from scoring a takedown in their semifinals match in 2017.

That's only happened two other times in his college career: when he was a true freshman wrestling David Taylor at 184 in the Midlands quarters, and when he beat Ethan Ramos in January of his redshirt freshman year.

Their bout on Friday night in St. Louis was of course the infamos "headgear grab" match. It's Valencia's only career loss, as the ones to Taylor and Hayden Zillmer at Midlands were during his redshirt season.

Part of the beautiful part about this matchup is that they have separated themselves from the field. For Hall, he's 7-0 against guys currently ranked in the top eight. He's also got a sneaky good bonus rate of about 65% for his career, which doesn't always jive with my occasional complaints that he's not offensive minded enough.

The PSU junior has only lost four matches in college: CJ Brucki, Alex Meyer, Bo Jordan, and of course Valencia. That's almost a surprising number given how massively hyped he was in high school, one of the biggest recruits of all-time (all deserved, though). But he also never got the forgiveness that a true redshirt year gives, and three of his losses are to All-Americans.

For Mark to avoid his fifth defeat, he'll have to weather several different series of attacks and chain wrestling from Zahid. Hall's going to need to finish his shots and ducks quickly, and also try to pick up riding time. If he gets two takedowns and riding time, I think he's got a chance. But it's almost definitely going to take more than one takedown to beat Valencia.

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So what else is happening on Friday night, aside from the #1 overall recruit in 2015 battling the #1 overall recruit from 2016? Well, it will be the eighth all-time meeting between the two teams. The Sun Devils broke down the seven prior match results in their preview for the dual.

Another juicy individual matchup is at 165, where two-time defending national champ Vincenzo Joseph takes on #12 Josh Shields. Coming up from 157 where he placed seventh last year, Shields and Joseph are both from the Pittsburgh Area. As seniors in 2015, Joseph won the 152lb and Shields won the 160lb AAA state titles in Pennsylvania.

Another interesting bout comes at 149, where the Sun Devils will send out #13 Josh Maruca. We still don't know who the Nittany Lions will use, as Brady Berge has only wrestled in one of their three duals, but beat Jarod Verkleeren head-to-head at the Keystone Classic. This would be a great opportunity for either win to pick up a ranked win if they can knock off Maruca.

On ASU's side, they're floating the possibility of an interesting wrinkle at the lightweights. The coaching staff might roll out Brandon Courtney at 125 and bump Ryan Millhof to face Roman Bravo-Young. The different in points between Millhof and Courtney would probably be negligible against Devin Scnupp, but the All-American Millhof certainly has a better chance against RBY than Josiah Kline, who has been the Sun Devils' starter so far at 133.

Arizona State at Penn State Projected Matchups

125: #5 Ryan Millhof or Brandon Courtney, ASU vs Devin Schnupp, PSU

133: Ryan Millhof or Josiah Kline, ASU vs Roman Bravo-Young, PSU

141: Cory Crooks, ASU vs #4 Nick Lee, PSU

149: #13 Josh Maruca vs Brady Berge or Jarod Verkleeren, PSU

157: #20 Christian Pagdilao, ASU vs #1 Jason Nolf, PSU

165: #12 Josh Shields, ASU vs #1 Vincenzo Joseph, PSU

174: #1 Zahid Valencia, ASU vs #2 Mark Hall, PSU

184: Kordell Norfleet, ASU vs #6 Shakur Rasheed, PSU

197: Chad Porter or Austyn Harris, ASU vs #1 Bo Nickal, PSU

285: Brady Daniel, ASU vs #3 Anthony Cassar, PSU