The No. 2 Iowa men’s wrestling team returns to the mat on Saturday, this time featuring the same faces in new spots and new faces filling the old ones.
The Hawkeyes, landing in second in the NCAA Coaches Poll behind top-ranked Penn State, had a down year by their standards last season. They finished fifth at the NCAA Championships with four All-Americans and fourth at the Big Ten Championships.
This year, though, the Hawkeyes have sifted through the transfer portal and made some adjustments to the starting lineup to position themselves to win a national title.
The biggest adjustment is junior and No. 5 Drake Ayala moving up from 125 pounds to 133 after a runner-up finish at the NCAA Championships in the former class last season.
“I was getting bigger every summer,” Ayala said. “Now it just got to the point where I feel like my best weight is at 33, so I’m excited. I’m not going in to throw my hat in the room. I’m going in to dominate.”
Filling Ayala’s role at 125 makes a battle between sophomore Oklahoma transfer Joey Cruz and redshirt freshman Kale Petersen, although it looks like Cruz will make the start as Petersen is recovering through the post-procedure process.
In fact, transfers make a massive addition to the Hawkeye squad this year. Senior and No. 4 Kyle Parco will start at 149 pounds, transferring from Arizona State after a fifth-place finish last season.
Graduate wrestler and No. 1 Stephen Buchanan transferred in from Oklahoma to take the 197-pound spot, having finished third at the 2022 and 2024 NCAA Championships.
“I’ll tell you that if certain personnel fit our roster needs, we’re open to it,” Iowa head coach Tom Brands said. “We love it. The more that want to be here, the merrier. We love it.”
And most notably, fellow graduate wrestler and No. 1 Jacori Teemer, also by way of Arizona State, will start at 157 pounds. Teemer finished last season in second place and brings a four-time All-American and four-time Pac-12 Champion career to the Hawkeyes.
“I’m just coming in, same plan,” Teemer said. “Everyone has one goal, and that’s to win a national championship. Just coming over, being ourselves, man — that’s the only thing we can do.”
Rounding out the back-end of the lineup are redshirt freshmen and best friends Ben Kueter at the 285-pound weight class and Gabe Arnold at the 184 — still to be determined if he’ll stay there after wrestling down at 174 too last season.
But Arnold’s energetic impact, stemming from the fire coaches Tom and Terry Brands ignite with him, is contagious in the wrestling room.
“The energy that I bring, I think it’s hard not to feed off of,” Arnold said. “I think I bring a certain type of spunk to this team that makes everybody want to get up and go run through a brick wall together … I’m able to rally my guys together and make them want to go to war, not because they have to, but because we freaking love what we get to do every single day.”
Kueter announced last summer he’d spend this season fully focused on wrestling, having divided his time last year with football.
“To get my hands on somebody else that’s not wearing the Black and Gold is probably what I’m most looking forward to,” Kueter said. “I made tons of leaps and bounds this summer, spring, and fall, and it feels good to see where my wrestling is going.”
No. 23 Oregon State
The Hawkeyes begin this season with a ranked matchup, a good test to determine where each of the starters sit in the first week.
“We’re looking to do what motivated wrestlers love to do, and that’s go out and take care of business at every weight class,” Brands said. “It doesn’t mean it’s going to be that easy. It’s an opportunity.”
The biggest threats on the Oregon State squad are No. 16 Matthew Olguin at 165 pounds to match up against No. 2 Michael Caliendo and No. 3 Trey Munoz at 197 points to match up against top-ranked Buchanan.
So Brands is looking for steadiness out of his 10 wrestlers — or what he called an “even Steven” approach.
“But why not kick everybody’s butt the whole way through the season?” Brands said. “That’s what we’re looking for.”
Up next
Following the Beavers, the Hawkeyes will open their home slate in front of a sold-out Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Nov. 9 as they welcome the Stanford Cardinal.