After sweeping the schedule and going 15-0 last season, NC State wrestling will finally make its return to the mat and tackle a new season, starting Jan. 3. Let’s take a look at who the Wolfpack will be facing this upcoming year:
Despite technically being the 2020-21 season, all the matches will take place in 2021, starting with a matchup against Gardner-Webb on Jan. 3. The Bulldogs went 5-9 last season and will be a little more than a tune-up for the rest of the Wolfpack’s schedule, but it’s worth noting that one of Gardner-Webb’s five wins was against the Duke Blue Devils.
Duke, which we’ll get to later, wasn’t exactly a premier program last year, but beating an ACC squad is a huge feather in the cap of the Gardner-Webb program, and NC State needs to make sure it takes the Bulldogs serious lest it becomes another one of Gardner-Webb’s victims.
Appalachian State is next up on the schedule, and the Wolfpack will take on the Mountaineers on Jan. 8. App State is a tougher opponent than Gardner-Webb, finishing 9-3 last year. Even the three losses the Mountaineers had were excusable, as they all came against ranked opponents, including two ACC schools — one of which was NC State. Like the aforementioned Gardner-Webb (which App beat last year), the Mountaineers notched a victory over Duke, and even more than in the Gardner-Webb match, NC State needs to stay fully focused to come out of the App State match with a win.
The Wolfpack will make the trip up to Charlottesville, Virginia on Jan. 15 for a match against the Cavaliers. UVA was a middle-of-the-road wrestling squad last season, ending the year at 8-6, but finished with an abysmal 1-4 conference record. As far as conference opponents go, Virginia is firmly in the bottom half of the ACC, though not the worst team.
Pittsburgh is a solid team, and the Wolfpack will have the unenviable honor of playing hosts to the Panthers on Jan. 22. Pitt went 10-4 last year, including a respectable 3-2 finish in conference. A then-12th-ranked Pitt squeaked by seventh-ranked Lehigh in a close win in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania – a win that started a four-match unbeaten streak. Case in point: Pitt has the pedigree to beat really good schools, including NC State.
But even more impressive than Pitt is NC State’s next opponent, the North Carolina Tar Heels. The Tar Heels were incredible last year, finishing 14-3 and 4-1 in the conference. That one loss came against the Wolfpack on Feb. 7, but NC State had a measurable advantage in that match, performing in front of a record 4,383 fans in Reynolds Coliseum. This time, the Wolfpack will have to go on the road to Chapel Hill on Jan. 29, and while it remains to be seen whether or not the Pack will have to wrestle in front of the Tar Heel faithful, just the absence of Wolfpack fans will make it tougher for NC State to win again.
After North Carolina comes Virginia Tech on Feb. 5, a team that also had a sterling 2019-20 campaign, going 11-3 overall and 2-3 in conference. The 2-3 conference record is deceptive and didn’t reflect how good this Hokie squad was. While the Hokies lost to UNC, NC State and Pitt in conference, they also had great wins on their resume, like against ninth-ranked Missouri, 21st-ranked Northwestern and third-ranked Ohio State. Virginia Tech is fully capable of giving NC State problems, as it did last season in a close loss.
While Virginia sticks out as a poor ACC team, the Cavaliers came nowhere close to the levels of ineptitude exhibited by the Duke Blue Devils last season, who NC State will close out the regular-season schedule against on Feb. 12. Duke finished an atrocious 0-17 overall and 0-5 in the conference. If the Blue Devils can lose to Gardner-Webb, there is no hope for them to beat the big red machine that is NC State wrestling.
