As we close out January, it's time to once again update the official Hodge Trophy rankings for the 2019-20 season. This might be the biggest dual weekend of the year, and it will have a huge impact on the Hodge race.

Our last update had nine wrestlers in it and four honorable mentions, but it's late enough in the season that we're expanding the list. It is not comprehensive of all the undefeated wrestlers, but please understand there are tiers to these rankings in terms of how realistic it is that some of them are even finalists for the award.

Before we begin, a reminder of what the criteria is for the Hodge Trophy:

1. A wrestler's record
2. Number of pins
3. Dominance on the mat
4. Past credentials
5. Quality of competition
6. Sportsmanship/Citizenship
7. Heart

Simple enough, you have to be undefeated to be considered for the Hodge. I will mostly use pin percentage instead of raw number of pins. Past credentials are basically NCAA placements, and quality of competition is an ever-changing strength of schedule comparison, which right now focuses on results against ranked wrestlers.

Not sorry at all, but everyone ties in the last two criteria in my book. Now, criteria three is tricky. I define "dominance on the mat" in several ways, using not only bonus rate, but also dominance score, and average time spent on the mat (ATOM). Dominance score treats every match like a dual and averages the total team points accrued.

For the purpose of these rankings, only matches against other Division I wrestlers are factored in, and bouts against teammates are thrown out. Here is a brief overview of the baseline states from our contenders.

The clear tiers are Zahid and Spencer razor-close at the top, Mark Hall a little bit behind them, the winner of Cenzo/Marinelli coming in a strong fourth, and then everyone else fighting for fifth, with the Parris/Mueller/Kemerer grouping a notch below that.

Pretty consistently you will see that I put a lot of stock in winning one of CKLV, Midlands, or Scufffle, mainly because there are so few opportunities to see D1 wrestlers in a high-level tournament setting. I also believe strongly in falls importance to the Hodge, since the award's namesake Danny Hodge is maybe the most statistically dominant pinner in NCAA history (36 pins in 46 matches).

Lastly, I frequently use past credentials as a separation point and tiebreaker. So guys like Zahid, Spencer, and Cenzo who already began this season with a pair of NCAA titles had a head start, and then past placements are an easy thing to look at when comparing two guys with similar resumes.

Shoutout to these honorable mentions, who are all having excellent seasons, especially #1 at 149 Boo Lewallen, #2 at 197 Noah Adams and #3 at heavyweight Tony Cassioopi. On to the full list, with a little more detailed explanations than usual.

Honorable Mentions:

• Pat Glory (Princeton), 125
• Roman Bravo-Young (Penn State), 133
• Chas Tucker (Cornell), 133
• Boo Lewallen (Oklahoma State), 149
• Shane Griffith (Stanford), 165
• Noah Adams (West Virginia), 197
• Tony Cassioppi (Iowa), 285

13) Michael Kemerer (Iowa), 174

Kemdawg is 8-0 on the year, so he'll square off against #1-ranked Mark Hall, a three-time NCAA finalist, before he has even gotten to double-digit matches at the weight. His last four matches have been decisions (three coming against ranked opponents), but an upset win over Hall could shoot him several spots higher on this list.

Dominance Score - 4

Bonus Rate - 50%

Average Time on Mat - 6:29

Ranked Wins - 3

12) Jack Mueller (Virginia), 125

The senior is ranked second at the lightest weight class and is looking to become just the third three-time All-American in the history of the Cavaliers program. He dealt with some injuries after winning the Cliff Keen Las Vegas in December, causing him to miss a few Wahoo duals as well as Senior Nationals. The Texas native has pinned a third of his opponents and will be heavily favored in his remaining matches until the NCAA semis.

Dominance Score - 4.44

Bonus Rate - 67%

Average Time on Mat - 5:01

Ranked Wins - 5

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11) Mason Parris (Michigan), 285

The Junior world title isn't factored in, but it does speak to the level Parris has jumped to. Part of the reason I expanded this list is because we did not get the Gable/Parris match, and the possibility he would lose to the Gopher was my primary reason for not having him on the list. His CKLV title plus a 30-percent pin rate makes it easy to put him here, but just like Mueller the Wolverine sophomore faces an uphill battle to win an NCAA title.

Dominance Score - 4.25

Bonus Rate - 60%

Average Time on Mat - 5:26

Ranked Wins - 5

10) Ryan Deakin (Northwestern), 157

Deakin has established himself as the clear and unanimous #1 at 157 pounds. The Wildcat captain won CKLV but didn't get a chance to wrestle at Midlands. He's got two majors and two decisions this month, which is why his stats are across the board worse than Parris'. However, Deakin is ahead of the Michigan heavyweight in large part because of the looming presence of the next man on this list.

What is inarguable is that Deakin has been battle-tested. He has seven ranked wins in his dozen bouts, including four guys currently in the top eight, plus he beat Jacori Teemer and Keaton Geerts, both of whom are on the bubble of being in the rankings. That alone puts him in position to overtake Gable, but the heavyweight has a higher NCAA placement from last year (sixth vs third).

Dominance Score - 4.08

Bonus Rate - 58%

Average Time on Mat - 6:06

Ranked Wins - 7

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9) Gable Steveson (Minnesota), 285

Since Gable did not wrestle in the Michigan dual, his next big test will be February 15 in Carver-Hawkeye Arena against Tony Cassioppi, a guy he dominated in freestyle in high school. Upon returning to the team, Steveson was an honorable mention back in December, but he'll soon be even higher than he is now because several of the guys ahead of him will have been picked off by other wrestlers on this list.

Dominance Score - 4.43

Bonus Rate - 86%

Average Time on Mat - 5:30

Ranked Wins - 3

8) Nick Lee (Penn State), 141 

There is no match I am looking forward to this year more than Nick Lee vs Luke Pletcher. I honestly think the most likely outcome is they split in the dual and at Big Tens, with the rubber match coming in Minneapolis at NCAAs. That means neither would have a real shot at winning the award, but they've been too impressive this year to put them any lower in this ranking. It's also important to mention Lee took third at Senior Nationals, beating Jaydin Eierman and Frank Molinaro there.

Dominance Score - 4.83

Bonus Rate - 92%

Average Time on Mat - 5:26

Ranked Wins - 4

7) Luke Pletcher (Ohio State), 141

The only guy on this list with double-digit ranked wins, Pletcher has 11 victories over nine different guys currently ranked in the top 20 at 141 pounds. His quality of competition/strength of schedule is why he's so high, and since I know exactly what Penn State fans are thinking, let's break down why Pletcher is still ahead of Nick Lee, aside from 55 percent of his wins being over ranked guys, all of them 18 or higher.

When you examine their common opponents, Pletcher averages a dominance score of 4.4 (or 4.2 if you take the second Dylan Duncan match) against a 4.0 for Lee. The Nittany Lion got a tech against JoJo Aragona and a major against Duncan, while Pletcher majored Aragona and had a decision the second time after majoring Duncan earlier this year. They had the same margin of victory against Chad Red, Pletcher pinned Doug Zapf (and was up 20-8 at the time) while Lee beat him 13-4, and lastly Pletcher won 19-9 over Dresden Simon as opposed to an 11-5 win for Lee.

Dominance Score - 3.9

Bonus Rate - 60%

Average Time on Mat - 6:45

Ranked Wins - 9

6) Kollin Moore (Ohio State), 197

Moore has seven ranked wins over six guys (he beat Kordell Norfleet twice), and missed out on an opportunity this weekend against Iowa. He also has a nearly 80-percent bonus rate in as many matches as Nick Lee and Gable Steveson have wrestled combined. A three-time All-American, the Buckeye senior captain looks much safer than his counterparts at 141, 165, and 285 to be a Hodge finalist.

Dominance Score - 4.32

Bonus Rate - 79%

Average Time on Mat - 6:16

Ranked Wins - 6

5) Alex Marinelli (Iowa), 165

The Bull and Cenzo flip-flop back with a decision coming this weekend on which one of them will be eliminated from the running. Marinelli has been boom or bust, with an even split of seven pins and seven pins in his 14 matches this season. If he beats the two-time NCAA champ on Friday night, he will pretty comfortably be in fourth place the rest of the way heading into conference weekend.

Dominance Score - 4.5

Bonus Rate - 50%

Average Time on Mat - 5:27

Ranked Wins - 6

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4) Vincenzo Joseph (Penn State), 165

Although Joseph has wrestled half as many matches as Marinelli, he has slightly better stats, with only a negligible disadvantage to the Hawkeye junior in average time on the mat. Just like I mentioned with Marinelli, if Cenzo can avenge his previous two losses in this series, he'll sit in fourth and his two national titles would give him a sizable lead over the rest of the field for now. He's also got four ranked wins in seven matches, three of which were against top-10 guys at the weight.

Dominance Score - 4.57

Bonus Rate - 57%

Average Time on Mat - 5:31

Ranked Wins - 4

3) Mark Hall (Penn State), 174

Hall has two different dominance scores: the 5.154 shown below and 5 if you "throw out" him stalling out Joey Gunther and getting an injury default against Joe Grello. It is not that we are discounting those wins, it is just difficult to place those within the context of wrestling's four main outcomes: pin, tech, major, and decision. He was up 6-2 when Grello got injured with 22 seconds left, was up 15-6 late in the third when Gunther stalled out, and was leading Mikey Labriola 8-2 when he pinned him in the last 10 seconds against Nebraska. This is not meant to disparage Hall but rather to contextualize the results of three out of his last four matches.

Within his weight class, Hall beat #2 Jordan Kutler 7-2 earlier in the year, and now gets #3 Kemerer on Friday. We mentioned the pin of #6 Labriola above, and could get #7 Kaleb Romero and #8 Devin Skatzka before the end of their dual season. If you missed our recent Block Party on Mark Hall, you can watch it in its entirety HERE.

Dominance Score - 5.154

Bonus Rate - 92%

Average Time on Mat - 5:40

Ranked Wins - 5

2) Spencer Lee (Iowa), 125

Spencer continues to have one of the most dominant seasons this side of Zain Retherford. He's wrestled 10 matches, six of which didn't make it to the second period, and only one has made it past the fourth minute of the match. It really calls into question what dominance means in conjunction with the trophy being a pinner's award. If the junior continues to not let guys get out of the second period, it will take several more pins to keep Zahid above him, but right now the Sun Devil has a 43-percent pin rate to the Hawkeye's 20-percent in four more matches, and Valencia has a slight edge with four top-10 wins against Lee's two wins over top-10 guys.

Dominance Score - 5.1

Bonus Rate - 100%

Average Time on Mat - 3:00

Ranked Wins - 4

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1) Zahid Valencia (Arizona State), 184

Zahid winning the Matteo Pellicone reinforced just how far ahead of the field he is at 184, and although it doesn't factor into his Hodge campaign (just like he and Spencer's Senior National titles shouldn't), it does really illustrate how this will come down to Zahid and Spencer in one of the better Hodge races we've ever seen. He has majored the guys ranked third, fifth, and sixth, but Black & Gold fans will no doubt point to his tight 8-7 win over Taylor Venz as the linchpin of Spencer's Hodge candidacy.

Dominance Score - 4.93

Bonus Rate - 93%

Average Time on Mat - 5:15

Ranked Wins - 6