Caleb Smith transferred to Nebraska last summer and made an immediate impact for a team that had a major need at 125 pounds. He landed on the podium in his first year in a Husker singlet and is brimming with confidence right now. 

When asked how he’s feeling, Smith immediately responded: “I’m feeling like the champ.”

Now ranked #2 in the country with a 7-0 record, Smith is positioned to make that happen in his final collegiate season.

Not heavily recruited out of high school, Smith spent his first four seasons at Appalachian State where he was a SoCon champ and two-time national qualifier with a 56-16 record. Despite his success, Smith decided he wanted to transfer to a Big Ten school to test himself against the best in the country. 

“We went to nationals a couple years in a row, and I started wrestling the Big Ten guys, and I thought that I could beat them,” Smith said. “I felt like I just need to be around them more and wrestle them more.”

A graduate transfer with two years of eligibility remaining, Smith had a lot of calls once he entered the transfer portal. Ultimately, his connection with Nebraska coach Mark Manning stood out. Also, Smith’s faith is very important to him, and he wanted to be in a place that shared that faith and those values. Nebraska was just that place.

“I just felt spiritually that God wanted me to be somewhere else and he wanted me to plant seeds here in Nebraska to help grow his kingdom, so I just listened to him,” Smith said. “When I talked to coach Manning, faith was something that was really big and important in my recruiting process because I want to be surrounded by it and be rooted in my faith. We were talking about how all the coaches were pretty strong in their faith, and that’s not something that happens in every program. That makes a program special because it’s bigger than you and it means more.”

In addition to that, Smith talked to his former club coaches Bobby Lloyd and Mike Dalton out of the School of Hard Knocks in North Carolina. They told him not to miss out on an opportunity because you may look back someday and regret not taking the leap.

“I talked to my club coaches about it a little bit — coach Bob and coach Mike, they kind of guide me through everything since I started,” Smith said. “Because I was real hesitant about it and didn’t want to leave, he was saying that if you were to look at this five or 10 years down the road, you’re going to regret it if you don’t.”

Smith started looking at what Nebraska had to offer, and the choice became more clear in his mind. From how the coaches made him feel to their pedigree, Smith saw Nebraska as the best place to be. 

“(Manning is) the only coach that talked to me and doesn’t talk about wrestling immediately. He’s just asking me about me and how I’m feeling during the process,” Smith said. “He knows it’s stressful and he kind of made me feel heard — made me feel like he cared about me more than just what I could do for him.”

Smith saw going to Nebraska as an opportunity to train under the same coaches that helped turn Jordan Burroughs and James Green into two of the best wrestlers in the world. And with a future in freestyle, Smith saw it as a no-brainer. 

“He’s coached so many of the greatest athletes like James and Jordan Burroughs and everybody on that wall,” Smith said as he looked at all the Husker greats on the south wall of Nebraska’s practice room. “I remember just watching Nebraska when I first started getting into wrestling in seventh grade, and I got to see James go place at the national tournament and got to see JB making World Championship teams and winning World titles. I was like, ‘Dang, I can get coached by that guy.’”

With Green on staff and Burroughs making the occasional stops in the room, Smith tries to learn as much as he can from them. Despite being much smaller, Smith still hits the mat with them from time to time.

“I ask them as many questions as I can and wrestle them if I can,” Smith said. “Last time me and JB wrestled, I felt that double leg. I was surprised he didn’t send me to like 2048 because he shot right through me — it was awesome.”

Last season, Smith went through the grind of the Big Ten for the first time and performed well. He certainly took his lumps, but he improved as the year went on and found the NCAA podium, finishing sixth in Kansas City. 

Smith went 24-12 on the year, but all of his losses were to All-Americans. Eight of those losses were to wrestlers who either graduated or moved up in weight this season. The others were to #1 Richard Figueroa (4-3), #3 Matt Ramos (5-2), and #8 Jore Volk twice.

“I took some losses, but I don’t even count them as losses because they taught me so much and it all paid off,” Smith said. “It made me feel like I can compete with the best of the best. It can be an on-day or an off-day, but I’m still going to show up and be the same Caleb Smith. It’s going to be a grind, and they’re going to have to fight and try to kill me to stop me.”

Smith also assembled an incredible hit list last year. He beat #3 Matt Ramos 8-4 in sudden victory and #5 Troy Spratley 5-4 at the Cliff Keen Invite in Las Vegas. He shut out #7 Stevo Poulin in the NCAA blood round and majored last year’s Big Ten champ Braeden Davis of Penn State in a dual. Against #4 Tanner Jordan of South Dakota State, Smith fell in overtime at CKLV before downing the Jackrabbit in a dual and at NCAAs. Also at NCAAs, Smith split matches against second-seeded Luke Stanich, winning their quarterfinal bout before falling to him in the fifth-place match.

“It just gives me a chance to know that I can get it done,” Smith said of those matches. “I expect to go out there and perform and win, and if I don’t win, then I just want to make sure that they don’t ever want to wrestle me again.”

Now with a year in the Big Ten under his belt, Smith knows that the season can be a grind and that you have to be ready every week. 

“It’s anybody’s week every week, and you have to just be ready. If you’re not, you will get exposed,” Smith said. “The good thing about it is you get a chance to bounce back – if you drop a match, you still have a chance to be ranked top-10 because you can literally wrestle the next best dude.”

Manning said that Smith has gotten his weight under control more in the last couple weeks. As for his development, they are trying to get him to be more consistent.

“He’s still developing and figuring out a few things — he’s going to be so much better when March comes,” Manning said. “He hasn’t mastered it yet. He does it sometimes and doesn’t, so he’s figuring that consistency part out in his wrestling.”

Anyone who’s watched Smith knows that he’s a very high-energy guy who teammates seem to feed off of. You’ll often see him dancing or singing while warming up before duals.

“I think he kind of emulates our team concept of just wrestling loose,” Manning said. “It’s really about how he’s going to approach the fight and bringing it for seven minutes.”

As for the ultimate goal, Smith is locked in on winning a national title for Nebraska, a team that hasn’t had an individual champ since Burroughs in 2011.

“When I came on my visit, I told them ‘If I’m not a national champion by the time I leave, then I failed.’ That’s the expectation,” Smith said. “I never go into a tournament just hoping that I place —  I go in there to win it. This sport is too hard and the dedication is too much to just go in there and be satisfied with placing. Obviously, I was very grateful and very happy about (finishing sixth), but I got higher expectations for myself and I think I have a chance to get it done.”

So far, he’s passed every test in front of him this season, including three ranked wins, most recently a 4-3 decision over #9 Maximo Renteria of Oregon State in the final of the Navy Classic. Moving forward, Smith will have an opportunity to prove himself at Cliff Keen Invitational in Las Vegas in December. 

Once his senior season is over, Smith will turn his attention full-time to freestyle. Smith hasn’t yet decided if he’ll wrestle for Team USA or Puerto Rico, but he does know he wants to be a champion. He plans to stay in Lincoln and wrestle for the Nebraska Wrestling Training Center under Tervel Dlagnev, joining a number of recent Husker grads who have stayed in Lincoln to train — Eric Schultz, Christian Lance, Liam Cronin and Peyton Robb.

Smith has flashed some potential at the Senior level as his style translates well to the more neutral-heavy discipline. At the 2023 Senior U.S. Open, Smith won his opening match against Poulin before taking on Spencer Lee, now an Olympic silver-medalist, in the quarters. In that match, Lee took a 9-0 lead into the break, but Smith was able to withstand the opening barrage by Lee, scoring four unanswered points in the second period. Smith lost the match 9-4, but it gave him confidence, especially considering what Lee has gone on to do.

“I want to make the Olympic Team. I’m not sure if that will be for USA or Puerto Rico,” Smith said. “I’m trying to be an Olympic champion, the best ever to do it. I have a lot of work to do obviously, but Olympic champ and World champ.”

Huskers Will Be Ready in Vegas

In less than two weeks, Nebraska will return to Las Vegas for the Cliff Keen Invitational. After winning three tournaments in a row in 2019, 2021 and 2023, Nebraska finished second last year behind Iowa State. 

In a historically tough field, Nebraska had two champions a year ago and three the year before that. As for guys still on the roster, #4 Brock Hardy won it at 141 in 2022, while #5 Ridge Lovett won last year at 149. 

This year’s field looks to be brutal again, but Manning and the Huskers don’t really concern themselves with that. They are focused on getting better and letting the chips fall where they may at tournament time.

“These guys know there’s a lot of good competition there. I think these guys are ready for that — they’re bracing themselves for a big tournament to be their best,” Manning said. “We don’t talk about it too much — about other teams or who’s there. We’re just trying to focus on what we have to do to be our best. They know it’s going to be a tough tournament, and we’re going to be ready for it because we’re going to prepare that way.”