As Hodge Trophy race takes shape, a reminder to fans of the award’s criteria, process

Photo: 2024 WIN Hodge winner Aaron Brooks was presented the award by WIN’s Bryan Van Kley and Tristan Warner at Penn State’s awards banquet in April.

By Bryan Van Kley

With fans gearing up for another epic month of national championships, expect one of the closest races ever for the WIN Magazine/Culture House Dan Hodge Trophy. 

As usual, there has been a lot of discussion over the off-season and during the season on who should win the 2025 Hodge. This is a great chance to explain how the process works.

Wrestling’s equivalent to the Heisman Trophy is awarded annually by the Dan Hodge Trophy Voting Committee to the most dominant wrestler. The committee, made up of all past Hodge winners, select national media, a retired college coach from each region, and a representative of each national wrestling organization will each vote based on four criteria: record, dominance/bonus-point percentage, quality of competition and sportsmanship. Taking them one at a time, here’s how the ASICS Race for the Hodge Trophy sets up going into the conference qualifiers. 

It’s likely going to take an undefeated record and a bonus-point percentage of above 90% or near that to win the Hodge. Five guys are front-runners going into the NCAA qualifiers: Penn State’s Mitchell Mesenbrink (22-0, 95.3% bonus-point percentage), Missouri’s Keegan O’Toole (16-0, 87.5%), Penn State’s Carter Starocci (21-0, 90.5%), UNI’s Parker Keckeisen (24-0, 87.5%) and Minnesota’s Gable Steveson (14-0, 92.9%).  

One interesting and important variable in the Hodge voting process is that each committee member gets one vote and they’re reminded of the four criteria each year (with the exception of multiple-time Hodge winners, who get one vote for each year they won the award.) The committee members submit their votes to WIN. In addition to those, the winner of the Fan Vote gets five first-place votes. Then, similar to the Heisman, whoever has the most votes from that process wins; it’s pretty simple and the first-place votes are released in the article each year stating who won the Hodge. 

In 2024, Aaron Brooks got 48 out of 59 first-place votes.

From my perspective in casting my own ballot, I look at record first since the more times you wrestle, the more opportunities there are to get beat, and the more chances for opponents to keep the top guys from scoring bonus points, decreasing their final bonus-point percentage. 

There are likely a couple guys from this group of five, probably Mesenbrink and the likely winner of the Starocci-Keckeisen NCAA finals bout, who will be 26 or 27-0 and have bonus points in potentially all or all but one or two of their matches. If guys like O’Toole or two-time Hodge winner Steveson are able to win out and keep their current level of dominance, they’re going to have 17 to 19 wins and an extremely high or potentially 100% bonus-point percentage (Steveson).

For me, more wins is certainly a significant variable. But, my final vote goes to the wrestler who left no doubt he was the most dominant collegiate wrestler of the year and showed no one was stopping him from winning an NCAA title, like Hodge did when he wrestled for Oklahoma in the 1950s. And, that bonus-point percentage objectively demonstrates that. I also look for the number of pins and techs recorded, as obviously teching an opponent is more dominant than a major. 

If the top guy or two had 34 wins and another contender had 18 or 19 wins, I almost always will vote for the guy with way more wins. However, this field is “close enough” in regards to their full season’s body of work that all the criteria should affect this year’s choice, in my opinion. And, as a reminder, it is a single-season award.  

In 18 bouts, only two opponents have kept Mesenbrink from a tech fall, which is insane. However, his quality of competition isn’t as high as others in the conversation.

The winner of likely Keckeisen/Starocci bout will have an edge in that their NCAA title had to go through the other. Starocci’s only non-bonus point win was against Iowa freshman phenom Angelo Ferrari. If the Nittany Lion wins the 184-pound crown, he would have done it beating last year’s Hodge runner-up in Keckeisen twice (most likely), though the first one in the All-Star meet is not officially counted as a match, it may still sway voters.

Only one guy has kept Steveson from a pin or a tech this year, which again is incredible, especially at heavyweight where often points can be a tougher to get. (Ohio State’s Nick Feldman lost to Steveson 13-4 on February 7).

O’Toole, who’s had limited matches because of an injury, has had an amazing senior campaign as a Tiger. Only one opponent (2024 NCAA champ Levi Haines up two weights) kept him from bonus points (a 4-1 SV-1 win).

One thing is for sure … it’s going to be extremely fun! Make sure to go to www.WIN-Magazine.com the week following the NCAAs to cast your vote. Subscribe to WIN today to get previews of the NCAAs, complete coverage of all the national championships, as well as a behind-the-scenes look at this year’s Hodge race. 

This article appeared in Volume 31 issue 6 of WIN Magazine, published on March 10, 2025.