When you talk to Nebraska’s Ridge Lovett or watch him on the mat, the guy just exudes confidence. Don’t misinterpret his loose, fun-loving persona, though — Lovett has domination on his mind for the remainder of his final college season.

“Really just open up because if every wrestling match started in situations, I’m going to win every single match. Once wrestling is going, nobody can keep up with me in positions I’m better,” Lovett said of his approach going forward. “Now, it’s really just trying to prove to myself and prove to everyone else that there is a gap there, and that I’m better than these guys. I want to try to start blowing those open and not letting guys shut down and keep it close. I want to be the favorite going into nationals like I was last year.”

Lovett is 10-1 this season and ranked #4 with his only loss a 6-3 decision in sudden victory to Virginia Tech’s #1 Caleb Henson in the final at Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational. Over the holiday break, Lovett said that he’s made a commitment to emphasize scoring more points and forcing the action to happen because his opponents often shell up and don’t shoot on him much.

“It’s just being willing to get tired, know you’re going to get tired, and go out there and just send it — force wrestling to happen,” Lovett said. “Sometimes, I kind of get caught up in just going through the motions and the hand fight and not really full-sending into shots — just letting the other person dictate where the wrestling’s going to happen. Just make people wrestle positions, and me committing to a style and a pace that people can’t keep up with.”

As for what gives Lovett his confident nature, it’s multiple things. First, he’s been in there with some of the best ever throughout his career — guys like Roman Bravo-Young, Seth Gross, Austin DeSanto, Sammy Sasso and Yianni Diakomihalis to name a few. Second, he sees his training partners in the room in Lincoln as second to none. 

“Every kid I’m wrestling with in the room is a killer,” Lovett said. “I’m going with Antrell (Taylor) like three times a week. When I’m not wrestling Trelly, I’m wrestling Greezy (James Green). I have some of the best partners in the world, I think, and all of that helps with confidence.”

Lovett has long been considered one of the best top-position wrestlers in the country, if not the best, at any weight class. Most opponents choose neutral against him, knowing they don’t want any part of his top game. It’s that mat game — both on top and on bottom — that Lovett sees as the true difference-maker for him.

“I would say top and bottom because nobody wants to wrestle top and bottom with me,” Lovett said when asked what he thinks sets him apart on the mat. “When they’re on top, a lot of times when I start getting up to my feet, they just let me go. (Anthony) Echemendia’s coaches were freaking out to cut me (at CKLV). I was like, 

No,’ and just reached back and grabbed his leg, and was like ‘We’re wrestling now, let’s do it.’”

A supremely confident and competitive Lovett is excited for the test that’s coming Friday night when #1 Penn State travels to take on the Huskers in Lincoln for the first time since 2020. Lovett will face #2 Shayne Van Ness in their first-ever meeting.

Lovett doesn’t watch tape on his opponents — he lets his coaches create the scouting reports for his individual workouts. It wasn’t always that way, though, as Lovett remembers being younger and being a “Trackwrestling warrior” as he researched his upcoming opponents while in middle and high school.

“I’m pretty sure Van Ness is a goer, so hopefully we get into a lot of positions,” Lovett said. “And if that’s how it goes, I like myself in that one.”

Nittany Lions Coming To Lincoln

With #1 Penn State coming to Lincoln, Nebraska coach Mark Manning and his Huskers are well aware of the task at hand.

“We’ll be ready to go on Friday night. The pure energy of this match and the excitement, you don’t have to talk to the team too much about who we’re wrestling or how great they are,” Manning said. “We all know they’re really good – they’ve won 11 of the last 13 national championships and they haven’t lost a dual meet in 1,809 days or some crazy stat. I think this is a good opportunity, and we’re going to have to bring our A-game because this team is really good, they have a lot of studs, and they’re well-coached. 

“I have a lot of respect for Cael Sanderson, and Casey (Cunningham), and Cody (Sanderson) — they do a super job there and do a great job of developing their guys, not only physically but mentally. It’s fun, it’s why you come to Nebraska and wrestle and work out hard in the offseason is for matches like this to step up and show what you’re all about for seven minutes.”

All 10 matches in this dual will be between ranked wrestlers with four Top-10 tilts. In addition to the marquee bout between Lovett and Van Ness, there will also be sixth-ranked Husker Brock Hardy vs. #3 Beau Bartlett at 141, Nebraska’s #5 Antrell Taylor vs. #3 Tyler Kasak at 157, and #7 Silas Allred vs. Penn State’s #1 Carter Starocci at 184. The only matchup there that’s happened before is at 141 with the series tied at 1-1 with Bartlett winning the last meeting 9-6.

As mentioned, the last time the Nittany Lions came to Lincoln was back on Jan. 24, 2020, with Penn State winning a tight one, 20-18. In that dual, then-true freshman Lovett lost to two-time NCAA champ Roman Bravo-Young 11-3 at 133 pounds, and Nebraska’s Taylor Venz beat then-true freshman Aaron Brooks 9-5 for his first career loss. The following weekend, Penn State lost to Iowa 19-17 and hasn’t lost a single dual since, winning 63 straight and still counting.

Bouncing Back Against the Gophers

Nebraska stumbled out of the gate after the holiday break against Northern Iowa, dropping that dual 24-9 in what Lovett says was a “wake-up call” for his team. Nebraska came back last weekend and won seven matches in a 21-13 win over a tough Minnesota team.

“I think that losing to UNI really helped us in the Minnesota dual. I feel like we may have overlooked them a bit. Personally, I didn’t because they’re always tough, but I’ve been here forever and it may be a little bit of a vet thing, like this is a good team — they’re well-coached, they work hard, they’re going to come to scrap, and they want to win,” Lovett said. “I think that maybe some of the kids on our team thought they were going to kind of roll over for us like ‘Big bad Nebraska is coming,’ but no, these kids are going to come scrap, so it was kind of a little bit of a wake-up call because you have to be ready every single match. 

“We always talk about treating every match the same, but I don’t know if we did. I feel like the UNI loss opened up our eyes a little bit more to that because if we had wrestled like we did against Minnesota against UNI, it wouldn’t have been close.”

Nebraska had #6 Caleb Smith get back in the win column at 125 against Minnesota’s #7 Cooper Flynn with a gritty 2-0 decision, and #6 Hardy downed #8 Vance Vombaur 12-10. At 157, Taylor took out #11 Tommy Askey in sudden victory with a big lift after falling to #4 Ryder Downey in overtime the week prior. 

“UNI was a head-scratcher. We had five matches where we were in on the winning takedowns. Was it a big deal? Not really. Who’s going to remember January 5? This guy ain't going to remember January 5th, he’s going to remember March,” Manning said about Taylor, who was walking out of the locker room at the time. “We want to beat everyone 100-0, but it ain’t gonna happen. The deal is that you have to learn and grow and develop from those times. Would we have been happy if we won 21-20? No, because that means we didn’t max out our potential. We just needed to work better at our finishes and be more intentional in some areas and learn from it.”

Manning was happy with how his team responded to that loss.

“I think what our guys did a really good job of was wrestling hard through the end of periods,” he said. “I think we wrestled really well in all three areas — top, bottom and on our feet. I think our guys did a good job of wrestling with a lot of fight and a lot of heart.”

Manning Wins 300th Dual at Nebraska

When Manning took over Nebraska, the program was put on a two-year probation due to violations from the former coaching staff, meaning a loss of two scholarships during that period. Over the last 25 years though, Manning has turned things around and built a program that’s in the hunt every year. 

Against Minnesota this past weekend, Manning won his 300th dual as the lead man in Lincoln. His career tally sits at 323 wins with the two years he spent as coach at UNI. 

“It was not a very positive thing I took over, so it’s just a credit to the guys that we’ve recruited and brought into this program, their development, their character, and their commitment to Nebraska wrestling — it’s something special,” Manning said of the milestone. “I’m just really grateful for those guys and the guys throughout the years.”

The Picture At 165

In late December in a dual against Nebraska-Kearney, then-#7 Bubba Wilson went down with a knee injury. Taking his place in the lineup has been redshirt freshman Chris Minto who has gone 1-1 in duals. After losing in overtime to UNI’s #17 Jack Thomsen, Minto shocked the Gophers by taking out then-#9 Andrew Sparks 5-4. Minto is now 13-1 on the year and looking like a solid option, currently ranked #13 in the country.

Wilson is officially back in the room and cleared to wrestle, and both guys seem to have a claim to the starting spot. According to Manning, the decision on who will take the mat against Penn State’s #1 Mitchell Mesenbrink has not been made yet.

“They both have a different skill set. They’re both really good competitors,” Manning said. “It’s a good problem to have, and it’ll work out here as the season goes on, but we have two good options. We feel great about both guys right now.”