Penn State wrestling schedule: Which Big Ten teams will the Lions face at home, on the road?
The Penn State wrestling team now knows who it will face during the Big Ten portion of its 2024-2025 dual meet schedule as the Nittany Lions continue preparations to try and defend their conference and national team titles from a year ago. Head coach Cael Sanderson’s team will welcome four league foes to State College while going on the road to face a different quartet of teams. It breaks down as follows:
Penn State wrestling home Big Ten matches: Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Maryland
Nittany Lion wrestling road Big Ten matches: Nebraska, Illinois, Ohio State, Rutgers
Dates and match start times will be announced at a later date. Similarly, Penn State will release its non-conference opponents down the road as well in addition to any tournaments it plans to attend.
Sanderson’s team returns numerous starters from last year’s top college wrestling team. That list includes Braeden Davis, Aaron Nagao, Beau Bartlett, Tyler Kasak, Levi Haines, Mitchell Mesenbrink, Carter Starocci, and Greg Kerkvliet. How the weight classes shake out this fall, however, remains to be seen. Besides rumors about Starocci moving up in weight in addition to a potential flip of Haines and Mesenbrink at 157 and 165 pounds, respectively, how the Lions handle 149 pounds will be interesting, too. Kasak manned it as a freshman last season after All-American Shayne Van Ness hurt himself early in the 2023-2024 season. He is set to be back. In other words, numerous decisions remain.
Who will Penn State host at the BJC?
Logic dictates that Iowa will be the team Penn State welcomes into the Bryce Jordan Center for its annual home match away from Rec Hall. However, as we saw a year ago when the Nittany Lions brought Rutgers to the basketball arena on a Monday night, there is no guarantee that the best home opponent will end up in the larger venue.
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“What happened is by the time the schedule came out, some of those larger duals just weren’t available,” Sanderson said last year. “Nebraska was THON, the other one had a career fair scheduled for the Jordan Center.
“So we just said, ‘all right, Rutgers always has a great team. They always compete hard. They’re nearby. Their crowd travels. And, when we wrestle there, they always have a sold-out show. So, we figured, hey, let’s just run it and see what we can do.”
Learn more about the Penn State wrestling program with the BWI wrestling show. You can watch it in the embedded video player above.
