Add another line to Mitchell Mesenbrink's growing list of postseason honors. The two-time NCAA champion and reigning Hodge Trophy winner has been named one of four finalists for the ESPY's male college athlete of the year award, a group that also includes Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza, prolific N.C. State soccer scorer Donavan Phillip, and Duke basketball All-American Cameron Boozer. All four finalists won their sport's top individual honor during the 2025-26 school year, but Mesenbrink stands apart in one key way: he's the only one still in college. Mendoza is already suiting up for the Raiders, and Phillip and Boozer have since been drafted into MLS and the NBA. For Mesenbrink, this nomination isn't necessarily a one-time shot. He still has a season left to try to add to it.

Fan voting for the men's college athlete of the year category, along with every other ESPY up for grabs, opened this week and runs daily through the July 15 ceremony, which airs at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and streams on the ESPN app.

Mesenbrink's case for the honor is built on one of the most dominant seasons college wrestling has seen in years. He went 27-0 at 165 pounds, posting a 96.3 percent bonus-point rate with eight falls, 11 tech falls and six major decisions on his way to a second straight national title, a 20-4 tech fall over Iowa's Mikey Caliendo in the Cleveland finals. The Hodge Trophy voting committee wasn't close to split on it either, handing him 61 of 65 first-place votes, and he ran away with the fan vote too, pulling nearly 68 percent of the ballots cast. At 82-1 for his career, Mesenbrink now owns the highest winning percentage in program history.

He's been candid about not putting much stock in the hardware itself. Asked about the Hodge back in March, Mesenbrink called the award "such an opinionated thing" and pointed to the beat-up trophy sitting at the Askren Wrestling Academy back home in Wisconsin as proof that trophies eventually just collect dust. Whatever he thinks of the ESPY outcome, the nomination itself is another marker of how far his profile has traveled beyond the wrestling room.

Notably, Mesenbrink skipped freestyle competition this offseason, a decision that raised some eyebrows given his track record. It hasn't changed the outlook for the winter, though. He returns as the heavy favorite to become the fourth wrestler in Penn State history to win three NCAA titles, joining Cael Sanderson's already loaded list of program legends.