By the Numbers: Comparing Courtney Kupets-Carter and Jordyn Wieber

The SEC is unquestionably the hottest conference of the 2022 season, with six of its eight teams ranked in the top 10 nationally. So far, Arkansas and Georgia are the two teams on the outside looking in, ranked 16th and 27th, respectively, as of week six. (Note: For the analysis featured in this article, we disregarded week seven rankings due to Arkansas having an insufficient number of scores to have an NQS, resulting in artificially low rankings.)

The teams’ coaches—Georgia’s Courtney Kupets-Carter and Arkansas’s Jordyn Wieber—are two of the most decorated and venerated American gymnasts of the past 20 years, and consequently expectations for their respective teams are high. Fans (and no doubt their programs’ athletic directors) aren’t satisfied with anything less than a compelling postseason run, something neither coach has delivered as of yet.

In anticipation of the Razorbacks’ and Gymdogs’ upcoming dual meet and the looming postseason, we wanted to set public perceptions and feelings aside and see how these two coaches actually measure up according to the facts.

Credentials

Courtney Kupets-Carter 

• Named the eighth head coach in Georgia program history in May 2017
• Georgia alumna
• No prior collegiate coaching experience
• Most decorated gymnast in NCAA history; accolades include a Gym Slam, 15 All-America honors, four team and nine individual national titles; Honda Award recipient in 2007 and 2009 
• First college gymnast to win an individual national title in the all-around and on all four events
• 2004 Olympic silver (team) and bronze (bars) medalist  
• Two-time World champion: team (2003) and bars (2002)
• 2003 and 2004 U.S. all-around champion

Jordyn Wieber

• Named the second head coach in Arkansas program history in April 2019
• UCLA alumna; ineligible to compete in college due to turning professional in 2012
• Served as UCLA’s team manager from 2013 to 2016 and volunteer assistant coach from 2016 through 2019; primary floor coach in 2018 and 2019 (team ranked first on the event both years); shared 2019 Western Region Associate Coach of the Year award with Randy Lane and Chris Waller
• 2012 Olympic gold medalist (team) 
• 2011 World champion (team and all-around)
• 2011 and 2012 U.S. all-around champion

Inheritance

Courtney Kupets-Carter 

• Program founded in 1973
• 10 program NCAA championship titles (including five consecutive wins from 2005 to 2009 under Suzanne Yoculan) and 16 SEC titles
• Coached by Suzanne Yoculan from 1983 to 2009; in 2009, team ranked first overall, on bars, beam and floor, fourth on vault
• Coached by Jay Clark, current head coach of LSU, from 2009 to 2012; in 2012, team ranked 11th overall, third on bars, fourth on floor, fifth on beam and ninth on vault
• Coached by Danna Durante, current head coach of North Carolina, from 2012 to 2017; in 2017, team ranked 12th overall, eighth floor, 10th vault, 13th bars and 15th beam

Jordyn Wieber

• Program founded in 2003
• Qualified to the 2009 and 2012 Super Six
• Coached by Mark Cook from 2003 to 2019; in 2019, team ranked 18th overall, 11th on floor, 15th on beam, 16th on floor and 29th on bars

Staff

Courtney Kupets-Carter 

• Josh Overton, assistant coach (2017 – present): bars coach; 19 years club coaching experience (including overseeing the women’s team at Chow’s Gymnastics and Dance Institute), coaching level 4 through elite
• Jason Vronk, assistant coach and recruiting coordinator (2018 to present): vault coach; previously served as assistant coach at George Washington and Yale; club coaching experience through elite
• Katie Heenan Dodson, volunteer assistant coach (2019 – present): Georgia alumna; four-time team national champion, 13 time All-American and 2008 Honda Award winner
• Charlie Tamayo, assistant coach (2017 – 2018): dismissed due to unauthorized use of UGA-issued credit card
• Suzanne Yoculan Leeburn, volunteer assistant coach (2017 – 2019): Georgia head coach from 1983 to 2009; won an NCAA record 10 national championships and 16 SEC championship titles; five-time National Coach of the Year; eight-time SEC Coach of the Year

Jordyn Wieber

• Chris Brooks, assistant coach (2019 – present): previously served as assistant coach for the Oklahoma men’s and Nebraska women’s gymnastics teams; earned seven All-American honors, four individual national titles and two team national championships as an athlete at Oklahoma; team captain of the 2016 U.S. men’s Olympic gymnastics team; 2012 Olympic team alternate
• Felicia Hano, volunteer assistant coach (2021 – present): primarily coaching vault and floor, assisting with team social media and creative content; 2020 UCLA graduate; 2018 team national champion and six-time All-American
• Kyla Ross volunteer assistant coach (2021 – present): 2021 UCLA graduate; served as undergraduate assistant coach at UCLA for the 2021 season; 2018 team national champion, 11 time All-American and 2020 Honda Award recipient; first gymnast in NCAA history to achieve two Gym Slams; 2012 Olympic gold medalist (team)
• Catelyn Orel: volunteer assistant coach (2019 – 2020), interim assistant coach (2020-2021): lead choreographer; 2019 Nebraska graduate; competed bars, beam and floor for the Huskers; named the third head coach in Lindenwood program history in July 2021

Data

Kupets-Carter assumed leadership during the 2017-2018 season, Wieber during 2019-2020. Because Georgia’s head coach emeritus Suzanne Yoculan Leeburn (arguably the greatest women’s collegiate gymnastics coach in the history of the sport) served as volunteer assistant coach during Kupets-Carter’s first two seasons at the helm, we’ll be focusing on how the teams have fared from 2020 to the present.

Average Scores
	Arkansas home meets	Georgia home meets	Arkansas away meets	Georgia away meets	Arkansas postseason average	Georgia postseason average
2020	196.6125	196.895	195.850	196.250	N/A	N/A
2021	197.056	196.675	196.831	196.175	196.516	196.750
2022	196.345	195.625	196.6375	195.808	TBA	TBA

Note: 2021 totals affected by COVID-19 protocols; 2022 metrics calculated through week six

National Ranking
	Arkansas	Georgia
2020 team	18	12
2021 team	13	18
2022 team	16	27
2020 vault	34	12
2021 vault	13	11
2022 vault	16	9
2020 bars	18	23
2021 bars	9	21
2022 bars	29	24
2020 beam	18	8
2021 beam	9	24
2022 beam	16	52
2020 floor	9	7
2021 floor	3	21
2022 floor	11	21

*All 2022 rankings calculated through week six

Attendance
	Arkansas	Georgia
2020 average	5,415	9,514
2021 average	1,241	1,638
2022 average	4,891	8,729
2020 max	6,741	10,224
2021 max	1,241	1,638
2022 max	10,345	10,224
2020 total	21,661	47,572
2021 total	4,964	6,552
2022 total	19,923	26,186

Note: 2021 totals affected by COVID-19 protocols; 2022 metrics calculated through week six

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Article by Claire Billman 

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