AJ Ferrari is headed to North Carolina.
The 2021 national champion at 197 pounds announced Monday on the FloWrestling Ragio Live podcast that he will be a Tar Heel next season.
It’s the third school he’s competed at after starting his career at Oklahoma State and placing third nationally while with Cal State Bakersfield last month.
Ferrari announced that he was transferring last month, a few days after the national tournament.
According to FloWrestling, Ferrari’s picked North Carolina over Rutgers, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, Penn State, Iowa, Iowa State and Michigan.
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North Carolina is coached by Rob Koll, a 1988 national champion for the Tar Heels. Koll coached several national champions while leading Cornell from 1993-2021. He coached Stanford for two years before taking over at North Carolina in 2023.
On Friday, North Carolina assistant coach Tony Ramos tweeted: “It’s always a great day to be a Tar Heel! If I were you I would have bought stock in North Carolina wrestling yesterday!”
The Tar Heels also added Iowa State transfer Kysen Terukina, a three-time NCAA tournament qualifier, earlier in the week.
History: AJ Ferrari
Ferrari has loose ties to New Jersey, having competed for Blair Academy and Bergen Catholic during his junior year of high school. He won a Beast of the East title to help Blair win the team title in December 2018, then transferred to Bergen Catholic in January 2019. As a transfer, he wasn’t eligible to compete in the 2019 postseason. He then moved back to Allen, Texas for his senior year.
Ferrari won a national title as a freshman, then started 10-0 in his sophomore college season at Oklahoma State before suffering serious injuries in a car accident.
The following summer, Ferrari was charged with felony sexual battery. The case was dismissed a couple months later, but Ferrari never wrestled for Oklahoma State again.
Ferrari did not compete for a college program during the 2022-23 or 2023-24 season. He landed at Cal State Bakersfield last summer.
How much eligibility Ferrari has is not entirely clear. The 2020-21 season was the free COVID year and did not count against any athlete’s eligibility. Depending on whether or not he could get a medical redshirt for the 2021-22 season, Ferrari either has two or three years of eligibility.
