After an eight-month hiatus, NCAA women’s gymnastics returns Friday with eight meets scattered across the country.
Among those competitions is the University of Utah’s season opener against Boise State, slated for 7 p.m. MST at the Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City.
The Red Rocks, perennial national title contenders, had a tumultuous offseason that included significant roster turnover — including the transfer of All-American Sage Thompson and the early retirement of All-American Kara Eaker — a third-party review of the program, the departure of head coach Tom Farden and the appointment of Carly Dockendorf as the program’s new leader.
All that is in the past now, though, as the gymnasts and their gymnastics rise to the forefront.
Expectations remain as high as ever in Salt Lake City, too.
“I don’t have very many gymnastics-related goals, other than winning a team national championship,” Maile O’Keefe, the reigning NCAA all-around champion, said. “I think that has been the goal every year, but going into my last year that’s my main goal, as a team gymnastics-wise.”
Here are some things to know ahead of the 2024 season.
How Utah is viewed nationally
Last April, the Red Rocks finished No. 3 in the country for the third consecutive season, finishing behind national champion Oklahoma and runner-up Florida at the 2023 NCAA Women’s Gymnastics Championships.
Ahead of the 2024 season, most national pundits expect Utah to again be in the hunt for the national title, though there is some hesitation with the Red Rocks.
The Women’s Collegiate Gymnastics Association preseason poll — college gymnastics’ coaches poll — ranked Utah No. 4 overall, behind No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 2 Florida and No. 3 LSU.
College Gym News, meanwhile, also slotted the Red Rocks in at No. 4 in its preseason poll, swapping LSU and Florida in the process, though the outlet expressed some hesitation about the Utes.
“The Utes have had about the rockiest preseason a team could have, from Kara Eaker’s departure amid accusations of verbal and emotional abuse and Tom Farden’s ensuing separation from the team.
“New head coach Carly Dockendorf is in place, having already shed the interim tag on her title, and Utah is ready to work. Can the Utes pull together to win their first title since 1995? Time will tell, but this talented group is certainly capable of that level of gymnastics.”
Inside Gymnastics, meanwhile, slotted Utah even lower, at No. 5, behind Oklahoma, LSU, Florida and Alabama, the Crimson Tide getting a bump because of a highly regarded freshmen class.
Utah was tabbed as the favorite to win the Pac-12 in its final year as currently constituted. The Red Rocks received seven of eight possible first-place votes (Cal received the other one) and had 46 points, ahead of UCLA (43) and Cal (40).
Utah has won the last three Pac-12 conference titles and earned at least a share of the regular-season conference title each of the last four years.
Say goodbye to the college stick. Maybe
A new rule change, in place for the first time this season, could have a significant impact on scores this winter and spring. That is if judges take it seriously.
The new rule is in regards to stuck landings and finishing position and is easiest explained as the attempted elimination of the college stick.
The college stick is notorious and widespread throughout the sport and goes as follows:
- Basically gymnasts attempt to mislead judges into believing they stuck their landing by celebrating as soon as the land, hiding — in theory — their lack of control and making it seem that any steps taken were to celebrate, not in reality to maintain balance. So a gymnast will salute the judges the moment their feet hit the mat, as opposed to holding their stick to demonstrate clear control.
With the new rule, gymnasts will now be required to hold their finish positions for at least a second — meaning legs straight and hands up in the air — or they can be dealt a half of a tenth of a point deduction.
The rule, in theory, should eliminate some of the perfect 10s that have become rampant in the sport, of which there were 84 last season, nearly all of which can be viewed here.
Utah has multiple gymnasts in position to make program history when it comes to perfect 10s, including O’Keefe, Jaedyn Rucker and Grace McCallum. Time will tell if the rule change resets the perfect 10 to more measured levels.
A new look (i.e. younger) roster
This year’s Utah team is far from the one that finished third at nationals last spring.
Six gymnasts from that group of Red Rocks are no longer on the roster, with fifth-year seniors Abby Brenner and Cristal Isa both exhausting their eligibility. Jillian Hoffman elected to transfer to LSU for her fifth season, while Lucy Stanhope and Thompson transferred to Nebraska and Oregon State, respectively.
Add in Eaker’s unexpected retirement from the sport in late October, due to alleged abuse experienced while at Utah, and the Red Rocks lost seven postseason routines, more if you consider regular-season contributions.
To fill the void Utah is turning to a highly touted freshmen class that includes three five-star gymnasts in Elizabeth Gantner, Camie Winger, Ella Zirbes, plus another freshman in Olivia Kennedy.
The Red Rocks also added Temple transfer Ashley Glynn, who was a burgeoning star for the Owls as a freshman a year ago.
How big of role will the newcomers have? By all accounts the freshmen’s contributions could be as significant as those made by O’Keefe and Abby Paulson during their freshmen season in 2020.
“They do (remind me of us) a little bit gymnastics-wise, I would say,” Paulson said. “They do. Like they’re all very competitive. They’re all ready to compete. They’re all fighting for spots and big names in their own sense and have their own titles to back them up.”
Glynn, meanwhile, appears to be a lock for Utah’s vault lineup, and a real threat in the uneven bars lineup.
A Utah (as in state) heavy slate
The regular-season schedule for 2024 lines up very favorably for the Utah.
And it is particularly Utah-heavy.
The Red Rocks will compete in the Beehive State five times to start the season, starting with Boise State at home Friday night.
The following weekend is the ESPN Events Invitational against Oklahoma, LSU and UCLA at the Maverik Center in West Valley City, which will be followed by the Beehive Classic, also at the Maverik Center.
The Red Rocks then open conference competition with back-to-back meets at home against Arizona State and Oregon State.
All told, Utah will compete outside of Utah only four times this year, prior to the NCAA postseason, while competing in Utah eight times — three times at the Maverik Center, five times at the Huntsman Center.
As far as national qualifying score (NQS) is concerned, every meet at the Maverik Center counts as a neutral site, an added benefit for the Red Rocks.
Is Grace McCallum fully recovered?
McCallum suffered a serious knee injury — a hyperextended right knee — during the 2023 season and missed five meets before coming back for nationals and delivering a key uneven bars routine in the national semifinals, helping secure a berth for Utah in the national championship meet.
McCallum wasn’t fully recovered by then, though, competing only on bars, necessitating continued rehab throughout the offseason.
McCallum is completely healthy now, as much as any gymnast can be, and will be a heavily relied upon contributor again.
“There was a lot of rehab leading up to nationals, just making sure I was ready to compete, McCallum said. “I think the coaches and staff did an amazing job with that. And then after(ward) I came back into the gym and kept getting more rehab so I could get back to the more of those pounding events.
“So it wasn’t just like I’m there (at nationals), all done. I just kind of build on it each day and it (her knee) just kept getting stronger and stronger.”
Breakout campaign in the offing?
While there are many candidates on Utah’s roster for “gymnast to watch” this season, none has earned more rave reviews in the leadup to the year than junior Amelie Morgan.
A bronze medalist with Great Britain at the Tokyo Olympics, Morgan has been one of the Red Rocks’ steadiest performers the last two seasons, all while holding down the leadoff spots in the bars and balance beam lineups.
There is a lot of buzz that Morgan will have an even bigger role this year — she has been training a Yurchenko 1.5 on vault — with College Gym News tabbing the Brit as a potential breakout star for Utah.
“In Salt Lake City, Morgan’s name is synonymous with dependability. The fearless leadoff of new head coach Carly Dockendorf’s juggernaut beam lineup as well as a stalwart on bars, the only real remaining question about this Olympian’s NCAA development is whether she could add leg events, and this could well be the year.
“Utah coaches are very enthusiastic about her Yurchenko one and a half on vault, and she showed a strong floor routine at an intrasquad last month.”
A Red Rock created podcast
The modern era of college sports includes NIL, and Utah gymnastics has been at the forefront of that when it comes to women’s sports.
Not only does Utah have a gymnastics-specific NIL collective — Who Rocks the House — but the Red Rocks also have benefitted from the Crimson Collective, with each gymnast recently being gifted a free lease of either a 2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee L Limited Edition or a 2024 Ram 1500 Big Horn Night Edition truck.
The gymnasts aren’t letting the collectives do all the work, though, and fifth-year senior Abby Paulson and sophomore Makenna Smith have started a podcast entitled, “Between the Banners.”
The stated purpose of the podcast is to, “highlight student-athlete experiences that many people may not know about, and to give a voice to some pretty cool women in sports and other empowering figures in college athletics.”
The first episode, yet to be released as of Thursday afternoon, features No. 1 overall rated recruit in 2025 — Utah signee Avery Neff.