What is going on with ACC wrestling?

By Brian Reinhardt

The outcome of matches are determined on the mat. The outcome of the postseason awards are determined by a vote among the ACC coaches. Guess which turns out better.

After seeing the 2025 ACC award winners, and disagreeing with the results, I thought I would write an obvious slant towards how NC State wrestling got jobbed.

Forgive me for being admittedly biased in this piece, but how did we get here, ACC wrestling?

2025 ACC Wrestler of the Year

Winner: Caleb Henson, Virginia Tech
Should be: Vince Robinson, NC State

Simply, if you are the conference’s lone national champion, you should be the Wrestler of the Year. It will take a lot to convince me otherwise.

As a redshirt freshman starting as the fourth seed at NCAAs, Robinson won NC State’s first national championship since 2018.

Are the ACC coaches, who vote on this award, saying winning a national title is not the best performance of the season?

To start the exercise, Henson is arguably the best wrestler in the ACC. The returning national champion at 149 pounds going into this season, he was undefeated going into NCAAs this year . But this award is not for a career achievement, nor should it go to the best wrestler. It should be based solely on the results of this season and the performance at the highest level of competition.

This year is the first time in ACC history when the ACC has had just one national champion in a season, and that individual did not win the annual Wrestler of the Year award. In fact, you have to go back to 1994 and UNC’s T.J. Jaworsky to find the last national champion from the ACC not to win the award .

Before this season, each of the last 10 national champions from the ACC were named Wrestler of the Year (including a tie in 2023 when both UNC’s Austin O’Connor and Pitt’s Nino Bonaccorsi of Pitt both won national championships and were named co-ACC Wrestlers of the Year). That dates back to Jaworsky in 1995.

Setting all that historical info aside, why was the criteria changed from just one season ago when you could argue NC State and Virginia Tech were in the exact same situation but reversed?

Last year, Henson and NC State’s Trent Hidlay were in almost the exact same situation as Henson and Robinson this year. Last year’s vote went to Henson over Hidlay.

Hidlay was the ACC champion and arguably the top wrestler in the conference last season heading into NCAAs. He was the No. 2 seed at NCAAs and advanced to the final, where his lone loss of the year was to 2024 Hodge Trophy Award winner and four-time national champion Aaron Brooks of Penn State.

Henson was the ACC runner-up in 2024, and the No. 4 seed at NCAAs. He won all five of his matches and won the second NCAA championship in Virginia Tech history.

Now, here is this year’s scenario.

Henson won an ACC title at 149 pounds and earned the No. 1 seed at the NCAAs. He racked up four straight decisions, no bonus point wins, over the No. 33, No. 17, No. 8 and No. 13 seeds to reach the final. In the championship bout, he fell to No. 2 seed Ridge Lovett of Nebraska, 1-0.

Robinson was runner-up at 125 pounds at the ACCs and was the No. 4 seed at the NCAAs. To reach the NCAA final, he scored a major decision followed by three decisions over the No. 29, No. 13, No. 12, and No. 8 seeds. In the championship bout, he downed No. 7 seed Troy Spratley of Oklahoma State in overtime ride outs, 2-1.

Was this not just like the situation last year but reversed? Did the ACC coaches think an ACC title was more of an achievement than an NCAA title this season? Or did they just not want to vote for NC State?

If you want to include more than just results at the NCAAs, Robinson was 23-2 when he stepped on a mat (he did have one medical forfeit), while Henson finished 22-1. Robinson won the NCAA title in his first season, while Henson just completed his third season as a starter. Robinson had 11 bonus point wins, Henson had 13.

I will die on my hill that an NCAA champion should always be the ACC Wrestler of the Year.

2025 ACC Wrestling Coach of the Year

Winner: Tony Robie, Virginia Tech
Should be: Pat Popolizio, NC State

This award could very easily go to either Robie or Popolizio, but I’m basing my argument on the previous year’s voting.

This year, Robie’s Virginia Tech squad tied atop the ACC Dual standings, won its first conference title since 2018 and broke NC State’s streak of six straight, then went on to place 11th at the NCAAs with a finalist and three All-Americans overall.

NC State by contrast also tied atop the ACC Dual standings, finished third at the ACC Championship and was the lone ACC team to place in the top-10 at the NCAAs with the conference’s only national champion and three All-Americans overall.

The argument here is that this award has never been about ACC results in recent history, but it has strictly been about NCAA team placement. For the first time since 2012, the highest finishing ACC school at the NCAA Championships did not earn the annual Coach of the Year award.

Let’s look back at some recent seasons and try to figure out why the criteria suddenly changed for this season.

NC State has won seven ACC team titles since 2016. Popolizio has won the ACC Coach of the Year award twice for those seasons. In those seven years, Virginia Tech outplaced NC State five times at the NCAAs and the Hokies earned Coach of the Year honors each time they did so.

Virginia Tech has won five ACC team titles since 2013. Whether it was former coach Kevin Dresser or current coach Robie, the Hokies have now earned Coach of the Year honors in four of the five years they won the ACC title. Three of those times they were also the highest placing team at NCAAs, and when NC State outplaced the Hokies in 2018, Popolizio won the honor.

2025 is your outlier. Dating back to 2013, NC State (7) and Virginia Tech (5) have combined to win 12 of the last 13 ACC team titles. Every year prior to this season, whichever program finished highest at the NCAAs earned the Coach of the Year award.

And those NCAA finishes have been close, over the last four seasons the two dominant ACC squads have been separated by no more than four spots.

Just like the Wrestler of the Year award, why did the criteria change from just last year when the Pack and Hokies were in the same scenario but reversed? Let’s look at last year’s resumes.

NC State won the team title at the 2024 ACC Championship (by the largest margin of victory since 2007 and featured seven individual champions), while Virginia Tech placed second. But at the NCAAs, the Hokies outperformed the Pack. VT was the lone ACC team to finish in the top-10, they were 7^th and had one national champion. NC State in contrast placed 11^th with an NCAA finalist.

Looks like a very similar situation, and VT’s Robie deservedly was named ACC Coach of the Year last year with a national champion and the conference’s lone top-10 showing at NCAAs. This year, the script was flipped — NC State had a national champion and the conference’s lone top-10 showing. 

But the ACC coaches flipped the script as well and voted the award to Robie for a fourth straight year.

2025 ACC Wrestling Freshman of the Year

Winner: Vince Robinson, NC State
Should be: The ACC coaches got it right!

If Robinson didn’t win this award there would have been a riot!

His closest competition going into NCAAs for this award was Virginia Tech’s Rafael Hipolito. The redshirt freshman won an ACC title at 157 pounds and was the No. 4 seed for his first trip to NCAAs. But he went 1-2 and did not place on the podium.

From 2005 until 2019, this award was only given to a true freshman, which is why NC State’s Hayden Hidlay didn’t win it when he was an NCAA finalist as a redshirt freshman. Thankfully, with the amount of highly talented recruits that redshirt their first season, this award was changed to include redshirt freshmen the year Trent Hidlay won it in 2020.

A couple of final notes. I wish the votes would be made public each year. I know that will never happen, but with any coaches’ vote, I would like more transparency.

Also, why was this year’s awards release a ‘news dump’ by the ACC at 5 p.m. There was no plan to have the announcement live on the ACC Network during the ACC PM TV show, just a release and social media post.

Former Wolfpack AD Lee Fowler once called the NC State fan base the Lunatic Fringe, and reading all my above thoughts and theories, I too could very well be accused of having my red-colored glasses on today. 

But trends don’t lie. Facts don’t lie. I just don’t like how the voting went this year after having been involved in this voting process many of yesteryears.