The No. 2 ranked signing class in all of women’s college gymnastics.
The highest rated recruit to date, plus another top 10 recruit, a top 25 recruit and a top 125 recruit.
Those are the rankings of Utah gymnastics’ freshmen class — the 2024 signing class. Unsurprisingly, Utah’s freshmen entered college with considerable hype and expectation, and that might be underselling it.
Avery Neff was the top-rated recruit by College Gym News ever and was projected to be “an absolute star at Utah” before ever competing for the Red Rocks.
Zoe Johnson was ranked No. 9 among all prospects and was bandied about as not only a potential all-around gymnast for Utah but definitely someone to watch on floor exercise and vault.
Clara Raposo was ranked No. 21 overall and the Canadian National team member was projected as a possible all-arounder for the Red Rocks, or at the least a genuine threat to crack into Utah’s vaunted beam lineup.
“Raposo has all the ingredients to become a strong beam worker in the NCAA,” CGN wrote. “Her elements are clean, and an easier version of her elite routine will give her the potential for high scores in Salt Lake City.”
And then there is Poppy-Grace Stickler, a British National Team member who, while not rated as highly as the rest of the class, was seen as a real possibility to become a regular in Utah’s floor lineup.
Neff, Johnson, Raposo and Sticker were expected to fill the void — and then some — created by the departures of Maile O’Keefe, Abby Paulson and Alani Sabado.
There were expectations that the Red Rocks’ freshmen would be good enough for Utah to not take a step back in any way nationally and maybe even rise higher than it had at any point during the O’Keefe era.
Fast forward to today, with the NCAA women’s gymnastics championships slated for next week, and how have those freshmen handled the weight of expectation?
Avery Neff and expectations
No Utah freshman had or continues to have more pressure on her than Neff. The South Jordan native was viewed as a future superstar for Utah and the idea was that that would happen quickly, if not immediately.
That expectation hasn’t changed, and if anything it has grown more pronounced as her freshman season has progressed.
Neff wasn’t oblivious to it. Before the season even started she told the Deseret News that she had worked to find what “tipped her off” when it came to pressure and how to combat it.
“I had to find like, what my trigger point is with pressure,” Neff said. “Whether that’s noises or visual things, and then I just kind of attacked it with full force, acknowledging what that is.”
Neff noted then, before she ever competed for Utah, that she gets nerves, or as she sometimes calls them, “big jitters.” She is human, after all.
Her solution, which helped her win multiple Junior Olympic national championships, was simple though.
“I kind of have to just remind myself that I have to be proud with what I do either way, because I’ve worked hard to be here,” she said. “It’s taken me a long time to figure out that what I do in the gym is enough. I do work hard. I know I work hard and it is enough.”
After competing for Utah this season, Neff now largely shrugs off the pressure. She knows it is there, that nearly everyone has extremely high expectations for her, and she does feel the weight of it on occasion still.
But with the support of her team she is rarely bothered by it anymore.
“Obviously there was some pressure and stress coming into (college),” Neff said, “but now I just kind of feel like they know who I am from a competition standpoint and kind of more as a person now that I am here, not just the fans, but also my team, so when I don’t feel 100% they know how to have my back and I think that’s really helped with my stress.
“... When there are times that I feel a bit pressured, they understand that, and they have helped me through it. A lot of different people have helped me get through it and understand that the pressure that comes with (competing at Utah as a top recruit) can be good.“
Zoe Johnson and expectations
In part because of Neff, Johnson was able to slide under the radar a bit for a good portion of her freshman season. Beside Neff’s strong season, a back injury suffered by Johnson before the season limited her in training and then in competition for a good amount of the year.
Johnson has emerged as a vital piece in Utah’s vault lineup, though, at a time when the team needed more on that event, thus fulfilling some of the preseason hype that accompanied her.
It is understandable that Johnson would feel a little bit more pressure now that she is actively competing for Utah, especially after back-to-back vaults that scored above a 9.9 at the Salt Lake City NCAA regional.
But Johnson felt the pressure that came with her rating as a recruit even when she wasn’t competing. It came as soon as she got to Utah, really.
“I feel like when we first came in our class was talked about a lot,” Johnson said. “That was hard, because I felt like I had to be perfect.”
It affected her in training. If she didn’t perform a skill well enough, in her mind, she was coming up short. If a turn on floor didn’t go exactly how it was supposed to, then Johnson wasn’t holding up her part as a Utah gymnast, and especially as part of Utah’s vaunted 2024 class.
“I felt like I had to have this and this and this,” Johnson said, “that I needed to be perfect, that what I was doing wasn’t good enough for Utah basically.”
It took some time, but Johnson eventually realized that she was putting more pressure on herself than anyone else was. Yes she came into Utah with a high ranking and a good deal of hype, but she was the one holding herself to an unreasonable standard.
“I had to adjust,” she said. “I had to learn that it was OK to take a bad turn, that I was still a good gymnast and that nobody thought I was bad just because like I fell or wasn’t training as good as I wanted to be.”
Clara Raposo and expectations
A year older than her fellow freshmen after she deferred enrollment at Utah last year in an attempt to make the Canadian Olympic team, Raposo was yet another gymnast who was expected to make a major impact for the Red Rocks this season as a freshman.
And yet, outside of a few routines on uneven bars and a few more exhibition routines, Raposo has largely been absent from lineups.
Maybe it is the extra year of life experience that she has on Neff and Johnson, or maybe it is her experience competing Elite gymnastics in Canada, but Raposo hasn’t had as tough a time dealing with the weight of expectation and pressure, even as she hasn’t been able to compete as much as many presumed she would.
“I feel like I always see it (the expectations),” Raposo said. “I am one that does see what people post and share (on social media), so I see the expectations. I try not to let them stress me out or influence what’s going on in my life, though, and I feel like I’m pretty good at that.”
Moving from Canada to the United States, from Toronto to Salt Lake City no less, plus leaving behind Elite gymnastics for college gymnastics was enough to focus on, Raposo said.
Dwelling on or thinking about expectations for how she’d compete this season simply couldn’t exist for her. There wasn’t room for it.
“I feel like I came into freshman year not with too high of expectations,” she said, “because I really didn’t know a ton about what I was getting myself into so it was more just like coming in and trying to figure out Utah, fit the new country, coming to college, all that stuff, and then obviously living with roommates too, which has been fun.
“There’s been a lot of adjustments, so I’ve not really looked at the expectations that people put on me. I’ve just tried to be myself and see what happens.”
Raposo notes that her time competing for the Canadian National team may have helped a little though.
Before coming to Utah she’d felt pressure, she’d experienced the weight of attention, so she was used to — maybe even comfortable with — attention from fans.
“I’ve heard my name out there for many years,” Raposo said, “so it’s been interesting here (at Utah). It’s been a very different feedback, because it is obviously a very different group of people who are are meeting me for the first time, who didn’t see me before. But again, like, I’ve heard great things.”
Poppy-Grace Sticker and expectations
The final signee in Utah’s 2024 class, Stickler’s freshman season has not gone according to plan.
She was, it appeared early on, primed to compete for a spot in Utah’s floor lineup. But pain connected to previous injury returned unexpectedly.
Utah head coach Carly Dockendorf said in a statement at the time, “Poppy is dealing with the same foot issue (that she dealt with) prior to arriving on campus.
“It was improving steadily, but as she continued to do more tumbling, the pain returned. At this time we do not have a definitive timeline for how long she will be out.”
To that point, Stickler has been sidelined since, seen wearing a boot and using crutches week after week.
Stickler wasn’t made available for comment by Utah gymnastics, and as a 4-star prospect she came into Utah with slightly less weighty expectations than her fellow freshmen (all of whom were 5-star prospects).
But Stickler nonetheless has been seen as a building block for the program, whenever she does return from injury.
What to make of Utah’s 2024 freshmen class?
It has been an interesting season for Utah’s freshmen.
Neff was hurt for nearly a month with ankle sprains that appeared at first to be serious enough to have been season-ending.
Johnson dealt with a back injury that limited her early in the year — and delayed her training — and Stickler has been sidelined almost the entire season with an injury that has kept her in a boot for months.
Only one (Neff) of Utah’s four highly touted freshmen is an All-American. Only two (Neff and Johnson) are expected to compete for the Red Rocks at the NCAA gymnastics championships.
It won’t be until next season at the earliest that Raposo and Stickler are able to really start making their mark at Utah.
In a lot of ways Utah’s 2024 signing class hasn’t lived up to the hype that accompanied it to Salt Lake City, though there remains plenty of time for that to change in the coming years.
When it comes to handling the high expectations that came with being the No. 2 ranked class in the country, the newest Red Rocks have, for the most part, figured it out, though.
It is a good thing, too. It may have taken some time, but Utah’s freshmen were essential in getting the team back to nationals for a 49th time, and any chance of a national championship run by the Red Rocks will necessitate greatness from them as well.