OSU Heavyweight Wyatt Hendrickson Named The Big 12 Wrestler Of The Year

The Big 12 announced on Friday that OSU heavyweight Wyatt Hendrickson was named the conference's Wrestler of the Year.

He is the first Cowboy to win the award since Alex Dieringer and Dean Heil in the first two years it was awarded in 2016 and 2017.

Hendrickson compiled a perfect 27-0 record and won the heavyweight national title with a historic upset over Minnesota’s top-seeded Gable Steveson, who held an Olympic gold medal, two Hodge trophies, two NCAA titles and was on the brink of a fourth consecutive undefeated season. That victory was preceded by a semifinal win over Penn State’s Greg Kerkvliet, the weight’s defending national champion.

Those two wins were part of Hendrickson’s nine total victories over All-Americans throughout the year, a group that’s combined for 18 All-American seasons altogether. He scored bonus points 22 times, 13 of which came by fall to put him in a tie for fourth-most in the country. For his efforts, Hendrickson was named a finalist for the Dan Hodge Trophy and the NCAA’s Most Dominant Wrestler for the third time in his career, all while facing a 2025 national qualifier in 17 of his 27 matches.

His only decisions came against Steveson, Kerkvliet, Arizona State’s Cohlton Schultz and Isaac Trumble of NC State, the respective third- and fourth-place finishers at the 2025 NCAA Championships. Meanwhile, only six of Hendrickson’s 27 bouts went the distance, and he allowed just four matches to even reach the third period after the end of the first semester. Within those matches, he produced a takedown ratio of 60:3.

Hendrickson’s dominant run through March began at the Big 12 Championships, where he defeated Schultz in the final bout of the tournament to secure his third career conference title and the team championship for Oklahoma State. In Hendrickson’s nine postseason matches, six resulted in a pin. He also won Outstanding Wrestler recognition at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational, widely considered to be the sport’s toughest regular season tournament.