The 2025 season was a swan song for many NCAA veterans who opted to use their COVID-19 redshirt year, granting a fifth season to make up for the modified 2021 NCAA season. Since this redshirt year was only available to athletes who competed in 2021, many of whom have now retired, the sport is seeing plenty of fresh faces fill lineups in 2026. Some fans have been speculating about whether this is leading to lower scores overall, while others argue that lineup experience has a minimal effect on scoring. After the SEC aired this infographic outlining the percentage of returning routines for each team in the 2026 season, data editor Emma Hammerstrom decided to crunch the numbers. Does having a more experienced lineup actually increase scores?
While the aforementioned infographic only detailed the percentage of a team’s routines that had competed the previous season, she was also interested in how career experience affected scoring. She decided to explore two possible answers to the lineup experience question: does returning a larger amount of a lineup increase scores, and does the number of career routines for each gymnast influence scoring? She compiled all scores from 2021-2025, as well as through week 5 of 2026, and tallied the sum of routines for each gymnast on each event throughout their career.
She also marked whether a gymnast had competed in an event in both 2025 and 2026. Each team’s returning routine percentage is calculated by the sum of returning routines on all four events, divided by 24. This differs slightly from the SEC’s calculation, where a gymnast was considered “returning” on an event if they had competed at least once in any event in 2025. For this purpose, gymnasts will be considered returning if they have competed at least once in the same event in 2025. To determine lineups for each team, the six gymnasts who had competed the most in 2026 on each event for each team were considered the “official” lineup for this analysis. Lineups were then analyzed for each team based on career competitive routines and whether the lineup returned gymnasts from 2025.
Percent of Experienced Athletes Per Lineup, Ranked By Average
On average in 2026, 71% of the gymnasts with the highest average on an event for each team had competed on that same event in 2025. Comparatively, 46% of gymnasts with the sixth highest average on an event for each team had competed that event in 2025. Two outliers are apparent here: the majority of the gymnasts with the fifth-highest average on floor and the 6th highest average on bars had competed in 2025. Vault overall had the lowest percent of returning routines in lineups, with five out of the six top averages coming from brand new routines. Notable outliers include Kimarra Echols on bars and CaMarah Williams on floor, who boast their team’s highest average on the event despite not competing in 2025.
Number of Career Routines by Average
When looking at 2026 averages across all Division I teams, the gymnasts averaging at least a 9.900 tended to have at least 10-15 more career routines under their belt than gymnasts averaging below a 9.700. This equates to about a season more of experience. Overall, gymnasts who have averaged lower in 2026 tend to have less career experience on that event than gymnasts averaging higher. Notable outliers include Mackenzie Estep on vault and CaMarah Williams (again) on beam, who have the highest averages of their teams on those events, whilst being new to the NCAA scene.
Percent of Experienced Gymnasts by Season
When examining the average percent of experienced gymnasts in lineups compared to prior seasons, data demonstrated that lineups are less experienced in 2026. This is a large dip from 2025, where on average five out of six gymnasts in the lineup had career experience. Vault took the largest dip, where teams on average put up about 37% more new routines in 2026 compared to 2025. Overall, teams put up 10-20% fewer returning routines in their lineups in 2026, equivalent to about one or two fewer routines.
Percentage of Experienced Gymnasts in Lineups (Top 10 Teams as of Week 5)
The top 10 ranked programs (as of week 5) all returned a majority of routines from 2025. Vault again has the fewest routines returning from 2025, while beam lineups for the top 10 teams mostly consist of returners from 2025. While Missouri only returned one vault routine from 2025, this event remains strong from the Tigers and ranks sixth nationally. Despite Utah returning an impressive 75% of its routines from 2025, it is notably absent from the top 10. Overall, each top 10 team returns at least 50% of its routines from 2025.
All in all, the gymnasts in NCAA lineups this season average less experience than lineups from the past two seasons. Gymnasts with more career experience are averaging higher scores and comprise a majority of the lineups for top 10 teams. However, outliers always exist and have made waves this season. Star freshmen CaMarah Williams and Azaraya Ra-Akbar have been putting up monster scores despite their lack of experience, going to show that career experience isn’t always a great indicator of success. Sophomores such as Kailin Chio, Chloe Cho, Avery Neff, and Addison Fatta are dominating the all-around rankings even with relatively less experience under their belts. The consistency of veterans such as Jordan Chiles and Anna Roberts is certainly fun to witness, but fresh faces keep the sport exciting and unpredictable.
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Article by Emma Hammerstrom with additional reporting from Claire Harmon
