2018-2019 Prospect Rankings

Prospect Rankings By Weight

Prospect rankings are back! Here we handicap the talent and rank them based on what we believe will be their future college weights.

Over the next couple weeks, we'll roll out Prospect Rankings at each of the ten college weights.

A little about these rankings:

The Prospect Rankings are markedly different from the weight class rankings (which are all grades with wrestlers at their current weights and based entirely on results) and the Big Board rankings (which are grade specific and opinion-based).

Prospect Rankings take wrestlers from all grades and project them to their college weights. We then rank them based on what we think (opinion/assessment) their potential is.

A good measure to understand what I'm assessing, is to find a valuation to a senior, and then to take all the other wrestlers and project what level they will be at when they are a senior.

It's certainly an inexact science - one that is ever evolving and full of factors (none more obvious than the difficult in projecting physical growth). But Prospect Rankings just might be the most important one to recruiters, who have to not only target each weight, but have to deliberate on signing that weight this year, or waiting a year or two on someone who might turn out to be better.

The Turnover at 197:

- Eight of the previous Top 20 graduated

- Eight of the Top 20 remained ranked at the same weight

- One of the current Top 20 were ranked at other weights

- Eleven of the current Top 20 are new to the Prospect Rankings

At The Top:

An excellent crop of 97's, many of whom have been part of the scene since their Freshmen seasons. Ferrari, Amos, and Cardenas all move up two spots after the graduation of Gavin Hoffman and Michael Beard.

Rounding out the Top 5 are new faces Short (yes, of that family) and Stout. Both won Fargo Cadets to put them on the map.

The group has a clear tier through Top 11 and I feel confident in their ordering. 

The final 9 could be moved around a bit from performance to performance. It also includes four guys from the Golden State. Both Cael Valencia (who went 3rd in FS, 1st in GR) and Nathan Haas (FS Runner-Up), had breakout Fargo's.