After Iowa men’s wrestler Alex Marinelli stood atop the 165-pound podium at last weekend’s Big Ten Championships, I’m confident that it’s now time for “The Bull” to capture a national championship.

Marinelli has underperformed in each of his previous two trips to the national tournament. In both 2019 and 2021, Marinelli entered the event as the No. 1 seed at 165 pounds. Both times, however, he lost in the quarterfinal round.

In his final run at the NCAA Championships this season, the four-time Big Ten champ has all the motivation he could possibly need. He has a loss this season, knows he doesn’t have another shot at a national championship next year, and in his words, ‘everyone remembers a national champ, so we got more to do.’

Marinelli will be joined as an individual champion by Iowa’s 141-pounder Jaydin Eierman.

Eierman, like many of the Iowa starters, has had a longer-than-normal college wrestling career. His journey actually began at Missouri in 2015-16. He took an Olympic redshirt in 2019-20. Then, Eierman joined the Hawkeyes’ roster in 2020-21.

Eierman has qualified for the NCAA Championships four times. He’s advanced to at least the event’s quarterfinals on four occasions.

Eierman recently medically forfeited a Big Ten Championship Finals match to Penn State’s Nick Lee. In the last two years, Lee is the only wrestler Eierman has lost to.

Counting his recent medical default, two of Eierman’s last three matches with Lee have ended in sudden victory.

All the signs seem to be pointing to national titles for Eierman and Marinelli. Neither has risen to the top of college wrestling before. This year, they’ll finally get it done.