2020-21 NCAA D1 Pretend Preseason Rankings

184

The NCAA has decided not to grant winter sport athletes another year of eligibility. These preseason rankings, however, have been assembled presupposing that those extra years were granted and that everyone elected to return and compete. We had to make a bunch of other assumptions too since it's April and all sorts of speculative lineup decisions have yet to be hypothetically made. So best not to take these too seriously, even though it would be incredibly cool if it happened. But no, only in our dreams. As real as it may seem, it will only occur in our dreams.

We have no idea if Zahid Valencia would be allowed to wrestle again for the Sun Devils if he got another year of eligibility. It's moot in the real world but here in fantasy pre-season rankings its more fun to think about it if he does wrestle so we're including him. 

We will also imagine a 184 that sees Cornell's NCAA finalist Max Dean come back after taking an Olympic redshirt. They will be joined in the title hunt by UNI's Taylor Lujan, who will finally get a chance at wrestling on Saturday at the NCAA Championship. Campbell's Andrew Morgan also gets another crack at breaking into the top 8. 

Chris Weiler would be in the top 25 but he recently announced he would be heading to Madison, Wisconsin as a graduate transfer, and we are forcing Johnny Sebastian to return for another year in our pretend season.

Questions or comments? Hit me up at @SpeyWrestle on Twitter or email me at Andrew.Spey@flosports.tv!