It feels like it’s been an unusually eventful NCAA gymnastics offseason, but it feels like that every year. We’ve had coaching changes, transfers, unexpected retirements and even more unexpected unretirements, injuries, recoveries from injuries, the Olympics, discourse about the Olympics, one last batch of COVID year decisions, a thrilling freshman class… It was really difficult to pick just nine things to discuss, so I didn’t: I have 11 of them. Here’s what I’m pondering, mulling, and fretting over as we enter the final stages of preparation for the 2025 NCAA gymnastics season.
Question: Can a win-now strategy work in college gymnastics?
The rise of the transfer portal over the last few years has enabled teams to make much more drastic personnel moves in short periods of time. We’re now seeing that strategy taken to the logical extreme, with several teams aiming to enter 2025 with drastically different rosters and the associated vibe shifts. There aren’t a lot of historical comparisons to draw regarding whether this works and what the risks are. Watching it play out in real time will be one of the most important storylines in 2025.
Missouri made its mark this offseason early, grabbing four transfers on top of a remarkable freshman class, and then surprised us all by bringing former star Helen Hu out of retirement. It’s not hard to see where the impetus for this came from: The Tigers were the breakout stars of the 2022 season and then didn’t make it back to nationals either of the two following years. There’s no shortage of talent or star power on that roster, but the freshmen who powered them to nationals are now seniors. Why not try something new and give the likes of Amari Celestine and Jocelyn Moore as much help as possible?
Another side of this story: Beam was Mizzou’s problem event last year, and most of the best beam routines of the last few years are now gone. No surprise, then, that the transfers are a beam group and that the coaches jumped at the chance to bring Hu back for one more. When I say beam will look entirely different this year, I mean it as literally as possible; there’s a real chance none of last year’s weekly beam routines will be in the lineup. Shannon Welker has also been up-front about the fact that he expects transfers to reduce the lineup opportunities for freshmen. It’s a small price to pay if that talented group can enjoy the experience of a nationals trip in their first year in Columbia. With so much talent loaded into the senior and grad classes, 2025 is a one-time opportunity.
Georgia is another team that enters 2025 with hopes of a big rankings move. Expectations here rest mostly on the shoulders of the coaches, but high-profile transfers and an early graduate in Sadie Jane Berry definitely give the impression that the Bulldogs don’t intend to wait around. If I were to make a prediction, it would be that this year won’t be a game-changer for Georgia and that impatience will build rapidly and unfairly with a typically paced transition process. I very much could be wrong on both counts, though. There are a lot of directions this team could go.
Bonus Questions:
Why does nobody want to join in January anymore? Returners like Jordan Chiles and Helen Hu rejoining their teams in January for reasons related to their life outside of sports are a slightly different case. As far as I’m aware, only one class of 2025 freshman is graduating early to join her team in January 2025. This used to be a fairly widespread phenomenon.
What is conference realignment really going to feel like? We’ve been hearing about this for long enough—and seeing it in reality in fall college sports—that the novelty has worn off a bit. Will we just settle into the new reality, or is it going to be ridiculously jarring to see UCLA on BIG+? Personally, I feel like I’ve gotten accustomed to the new Big Ten teams and Oklahoma in the SEC, but I’ll probably feel totally blindsided by a Big 12 logo on an Arizona State leotard.
Comment: I’m still not sure what to make of the Iowa-Washington coach switcheroo.
Jen Llewellyn walking away after three promising years in Seattle to take the reins of a program that had just missed regionals was one of the weirder stories of the offseason, and Iowa’s associate head coach taking over at Washington was just funny. We’re going to be dealing with the consequences of this one for a while, starting with Skylar Killough-Wilhelm’s grad transfer to Kentucky after previously announcing her COVID year at Washington.
Iowa will probably be the stronger team this year with the help of the entire Canadian national team. Going forward, we’re still dealing with the results of a recruiting murder-suicide: Only one of the 2025 gymnasts committed to either Iowa or Washington this spring ended up signing with her intended school. Both recovered pretty well, leveraging existing connections to rebuild signing classes in a rush, but neither has made a big splash in the class of 2026 market yet.
Of course, Jessa Hansen’s identity as a head coach is still something of an unknown. There’s always a possibility that Washington will now become a good vault team. A girl can dream, right?
Bonus Comments:
It’s been a while since we’ve thought about Michigan freshmen as much as we will this year. There have been bright spots, but overall a Michigan freshman hasn’t come in and changed the team since Sierra Brooks was the Big Ten Freshman of the Year in 2020. The Wolverines have been pretty content to ride on upperclassman talent and let freshmen settle in (or fade out of relevance) on their own time. This needs to be the year that changes. The talent level of the Michigan freshmen is so superior and the team needs them so sorely that if they don’t make a splash immediately, it will have serious consequences. Chatter of injuries to Lucie Kirchner and Amy Fukami isn’t the best of starts, but Sophia Diaz looks like a star and several others look ready for multiple lineups.
Utah’s flying under the radar a little bit. Some star power definitely graduated, but I’ve been a little bit puzzled by projections that the Utes will struggle with depth and not perform up to their standards this year. They’ve graduated six routines and gained four very NCAA-ready freshmen, three of whom are five-star recruits and one of whom is the top freshman in the country. That’s on top of a high-profile transfer and several returners like Ella Zirbes and Camie Winger, who look stronger and prepared to contribute more this year. It’s really not a catastrophe.
I’m excited to learn about what LIU is like as a normal and hopefully not miserable team! With a couple of transfers and an intriguing freshman class, including elite Camille Lund Rasmussen, this could turn out to be quite fun.
Concern: It’s time to get a little more clarity on this scholarship rule change.
Supposedly, effective 2025, gymnastics will cease to be a head-count scholarship sport and instead will have a roster size limit of 20 with as many scholarships as the individual institution chooses to fund and the ability to split scholarships at the coach’s discretion.
At this point, it seems likely that this will occur and that coaches are beginning to plan for it; already, we’ve heard roster limits cited as a rumored cause of recruit de-commitments, and the math for some 2026 recruiting classes does not add up in a 12-scholarship universe. All of this information has come to us in a confusingly unofficial way, though, and it feels overdue to have some kind of formal acknowledgment of such a fundamental change.
It’ll be very interesting to see how these rules play out in reality. Some teams are already projected to be significantly over 20 athletes in 2025-26 and will presumably need to make cuts. I’m expecting an even larger transfer portal influx this upcoming summer, with roster spots at destination schools more limited than before. We’ll also have to wait and see how many scholarships teams elect to fund. Who will be the first to 20 scholarships? Oklahoma’s certainly recruiting like it expects an increase in available funds. In a fairly tight financial environment for non-revenue sports, how many teams will see scholarship cuts?
Bonus Concerns:
I’m already dreading the amount of broadcast time this season that will be devoted to discussion of the Olympic floor bronze. I doubt even Jordan Chiles wants this to be a discussion topic in perpetuity. But it’s going to be.
COVID years are still happening. Also, how are they ending? I’m pretty sure someone’s going to find a way to take one next year. As exhausting as it’s been, it’s going to be so odd that for most of this year’s seniors, gymnastics will just be non-negotiably over. (Unless that supposed pro league actually happens, but let’s be honest…)
How many legs survived the Olympic cycle? We’re going to be on an interesting journey this year with Konnor McClain, Kayla DiCello, Skye Blakely, and Ondine Achampong, all of whom sustained serious injuries over the elite summer and who seem to be attempting to return in time to compete at least bars this year. There’s also a lot of strain on other elites who had a long summer, including Jade Carey, who never took a break from NCAA and then went on tour, as well as Joscelyn Roberson, who has to deal with the typical college freshman transition process following elite and the tour. Competing elite alongside NCAA is becoming much more normal, but there are some different dimensions of strain that these athletes will be exploring.
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Article by Rebecca Scally
