As Kyven Gadson and Michael Moreno prepare for their final season donning cardinal and gold, the goal is clear: Winning a national championship.

The redshirt seniors have both claimed All-American honors the past two seasons, but have ultimately fallen short of the coveted national title.

“I’m focused on the goal and that’s to win a national championship,” Moreno said. “It starts early, but you’ve got to have that mindset.”

It’s clear that Gadson, Moreno and ISU coach Kevin Jackson are all on the same page when it comes to that mindset.

Jackson said that both have the talent to win a title, it simply comes down to how they wrestle once the NCAA tournament rolls around in March.

“It’s just you got to have a hot tournament,” Jackson said. “I think they’ve had some hot rounds, but I think there’s been a round in there at the NCAA tournament where we kind of fell off and didn’t compete to our best.”

Gadson remembers his slip up from last season’s NCAA tournament quite clearly. It came at the hands of Scott Schiller of Minnesota in a quarterfinal matchup. Gadson was up 4-1 in the match, before eventually suffering a 6-4 loss.

“I might have gotten a little complacent, you could say, and that might have cost me a national title,” Gadson said. “It’s something you think about here and there and you just accept it. It’s one of those things you just live with. You get better from it, grow from it, learn from it.”

Gadson has done exactly that. He has shifted his focus to this season and to what he needs to do to achieve a different result at the end of this season, which is ultimately the end of his career.

“It’s all done so you can just move forward from it or I can dwell on it, which I’m not planning on dwelling on it at all,” Gadson said.

Like Gadson, Moreno is also has his sights set on a national championship after taking fifth and sixth at the NCAA tournament the previous two years.

Moreno said he spent much of the off-season focusing on his mental training.

“I had a lot of time to sit around and think about, you know, if that is really what I’m going to be happy with when things are all said and done,” Moreno said. “Is that really what my legacy wants to be? A 3-time All-American or do you want to leave as a national champ?”

That answer to that question is clear to Gadson and Moreno.

As they zero in on their final season as Cyclones, both will look to cement their legacies with a national championship.

With Gadson ranked third and Moreno ranked fourth, according to FloWrestling, both are confident in their abilities to bring a title home.

“I know right now that I am good enough to win it, but I have to keep pushing myself,” Moreno said. “I can’t sit on that… I have to keep pursuing a high echelon of training and eventually competition and that’ll take you to the top. Knowing [that you are good enough] is only half the battle.”