I’ve been putting off doing the Alabama freshmen for a while because there are eleventy million of them, but here we go.

Alabama lost a fairly significant group after 2013 in Priess, Sledge, Gutierrez, and Alexin, both in terms of lineup contribution and fan favorite routines. Ashley Sledge and Marissa Gutierrez were my favorite Bammers, so there are places in my shrine to be won if these freshmen are up to the task. We’ll see. Side question for Alabama fans: If you’re a UCLA athlete, you’re a Bruin. If you’re a Florida athlete, you’re a Gator. What is the approved singular noun term for an Alabama athlete? A Bammer? A Tide? A Crimson? Guidance is appreciated.

Because of these exiting routines, 2014 seemed like it would be a down year for the Tide, especially since the original signing group was comprised of just Amanda Jetter and Katie Bailey, who alone would not be able to make up for the lost scores. But then Sarah went to work, and now this freshmen class is a monster.

Still, because such significant scores are gone, these freshmen will need to be contributors from the beginning, particularly on bars. Half of the bars lineup is gone, and the returning gymnasts have had a tendency to suffer from handstand-itis, so bars is my primary area of focus for these freshmen. This is a big group that certainly has the potential to contribute on every event, but it also seems that Alabama could come up with nationally competitive vault and floor lineups solely using returning gymnasts if necessary.

We can see bits and pieces from some of the freshman routines already in the video from Ghosts and Goblins. 

Amanda Jetter
We’ll start with Jetter, not just because she was well-known as an elite but because she is among those who could be a significant piece of the UB solution. As an elite, she was always associated with Cassie Whitcomb because they emerged at the same time and boast the same strengths, so I have a vague impression that her NCAA career will follow the same path solely by association, but that’s not really fair. All will depend on how much she suffers from CGA back or CGA legs or any of the other eponymous Cincinnati injuries. 

Vault – 2012 Nationals

Bars – 2012 Nationals

Beam – 2011 Classic

Floor – 2012 Nationals

Bars was always Jetter’s standout event as an elite, primarily because the US is so desperate for bars workers that anyone who can do a stalder is suddenly the next coming of Chow, but it put her much closer to major international assignments than she would have been otherwise. She has the difficulty and enough of the overall Mary Lee-ness to her work to convince me that this could be another strong Cincinnati bars routine in NCAA.

Floor is probably her second most believable event, given her double arabian and strong twisting skills. There is going to be major competition for those floor spots, however, especially since five of the six Super Six routines from last year are returning. Jetter is not the only member of this freshman class competing for that lineup, either, and I’m still holding out hope that we will see Kayla Williams there at some point as well. When you compete a 3/1 side pass as an elite, you don’t get to go your whole NCAA career without competing floor. You just don’t. 

Those two events are my primary considerations as to where Jetter fits into the team, even though she is perfectly capable on the others as well. On beam, for instance, she has strong acrobatic skills and competed an arabian in elite, but I develop an anxiety disorder just thinking about watching one of her beam routines. It’s not even about those big acro skills because she was always quite strong on them. It’s the simpler dance elements. Remember that L turn and that damn popa, and Mary Lee going, “You looked like an idiot!” at that one meet? That’s the only thing in my head when I think of Jetter’s beam. Yes, USAGym archives. Thank you forever. “That popa is out!”

Aja-Monet Sims
The integral part of Sarah Patterson’s work to beef up this freshman class was getting Aja-Monet Sims to arrive a year early. Sims burst into the gymnastics consciousness a couple years ago when she debuted an original bars skill, a weiler comaneci, and over the last year or so, she has become one of the top-placing JO gymnasts, finishing 2nd at the Nastia “I can’t believe you think I like attention” Cup and 7th in Senior B this year (only after a low bars score). She won’t be joining the team until December, so keep in mind that unlike her classmates, the coaching staff will not have those months of preseason to make adjustments to her routines.

Vault – 2013 Nastia

Bars – 2013 Chicago Style
http://www.gymnastike.org/embed/MjE5NjkyNTk4?related=1&autoplay=false

Beam – 2013 JO Nationals
http://www.gymnastike.org/embed/ODEzNzA5OTYw?related=1&autoplay=false

Floor – 2013 Nastia

Beam should be one of her most important events, and even though my main focus for the class is  bars, keep in mind that someone will also need to make up for the loss of Priess on beam. Sims scored into the 9.7s frequently in JO and boasts an acrobatic security that is very attractive for an NCAA lineup, along with hit splits and a strong double back dismount. She has potential on vault and floor as well with big power, even though she hasn’t always shown the most difficulty on floor. Still, expect her to be in the mix. On bars, while she hasn’t competed her original skill much lately, she still has a very nice regular comaneci that could make for a standout routine, but she has been plagued by overall wonky legs, especially on the bail, that will bring her scores way down if not refined. It’s not always as problematic as in the video above, but it could be a concern. 

Dominique Pegg
Bama is also getting in on the Canadians this year, with Dominique Pegg joining as another of Sarah’s later adds. We’ve known for a while that Pegg would be coming to Alabama, but it always seemed up in the air when it would happen. Well, the time is now. Pegg had a nice little elite career for herself, culminating in her making the 2012 Olympic team, finishing 17th in the AA final, and competing vault, beam, and, floor in Team Final. She could figure on all those events.

Vault – 2012 Canadian Nationals

Bars – 2012 Canadian Trials

Floor – 2011 Worlds

Surprise, surprise, floor has always been her strongest, so the rich get richer. She ended up missing the floor final in London by just a couple tenths, has a strong DLO, and seems to commit to maintaining personality and expressiveness in her routines, even if the above routine has a little Kupetsishness to it (Are you playing the guitar?). It’ll be interesting to see what they do with her choreographically because she has the potential to bring a different look or style to the floor brigade if they’re open to it. Or, they could just give her some weird techno. Whatever. 

In the intrasquad video, we didn’t see anything from her except pieces on bars. Those pieces looked  solid, as they always did when she was an elite, but her major obstacle toward getting high bars scores was giving away tons of tiny deductions throughout for leg form and short handstands, so we’ll have to watch that.

Katie Bailey
Floor – 2013 JO Nationals

Bailey is probably the type who sits in the land of borderline contention on most events and would be a significant contributor on a lesser team. Floor is a strength, with a double arabian that makes her look like Diandra Milliner 2 and a little front 2/1 dismount. You know, no big deal. In the Ghosts and Goblins video, she shows a pretty clean Y1/2 that’s a little under with a step back. It’s not a bad vault, but do we really see Alabama going with a Y1/2 in the vault lineup right now? It would have to be great and stuck every time. Alabama also seems encouraged by her bars work, and her tuck full dismount is gigantor. 

Mary Lillian Sanders is also a person, and the G&G video features the first gymnastics I’ve ever seen from her. She has the competitive skills but nothing that looks to me like it will be in the lineups. She’ll probably spend the majority of her time on the team getting the “She provides great depth” kiss of death.

I’ve saved Keely McNeer for last because she’s the big wildcard for me. She’s another whom it’s impossible to judge because we haven’t seen anything from her in so long, but even more so because I definitely thought she was retired for good. But, she had the elite skills at one point, so the potential is there. I’ve included her floor routine from 2010 just as a taste.

Floor – 2010 Nationals

I always felt a little bad for Keely, as I think most gym fans did, because she was Chow’s only elite in the wake of Shawn Johnson mania, so she was always accosted with “YOU’RE GOING TO BE THE NEXT SHAWN JOHNSON, RIGHT???” which is so unfair. Um, no. Go away.

It’s training videos time.

My confession is that I’m not always as interested in preseason team training videos as I’m supposed to be, given my NCAA dedication. Unless you’re Danusia Francis performing a fab beam dismount, it’s usually just a lot of doing a layout stepout to a Justin Bieber song. It’s hard to glean a ton from that.

Still, the videos are beginning to come fast and furious now, so let’s see what we can see.

FLORIDA

Most of this is the usual. The people looking good are the ones we would expect to look good. Macko on beam and Kytra on floor are the most fiery so far. Colussi-Pelaez (last on beam, after Kytra on floor) looks better than she did at Worlds, and I’m pleased to see both her and Boyce working DLOs on bars. Their lack of dismount difficulty was my biggest hesitation about their bars work.

GEORGIA

Chelsea Davis’s new bars dismount? Reason? We kind of get a glimpse of Kiera Brown’s excellent tkatchev in this video as well.

UTAH – Bars

OKLAHOMA
A bunch of videos on the youtube page, but here’s Taylor Spears looking Taylor Spears on bars.

ALABAMA

LSU

STANFORD

Beginning on Wednesday, schools will begin making their official announcements about which gymnasts have signed NLIs (National Letters of Intent) to join these programs for the 2014-2015 season.

We have a fairly complete picture of what this class will look like already because of the verbal announcements (the full list can be viewed at Collegegymfans), but there are always one or two unexpected happenings, usually involving a gymnast we expected to sign not being part of the original announcement. This can happen for a whole number of reasons, usually boring and logistical.

I’ll include the announced classes and links to the press releases here as they become available beginning Wednesday and continuing for the next week.

Thank you for your timeliness, teams that announced on the first day.

ALABAMA – Release
Aja Sims and Keely McNeer for 2013-2014
Mackenzie Brannan, Nickie Guerrero, and Kiana Winston for 2014-2015

Most important note: I am highly disappointed that she appears to have dropped the Monet from Aja-Monet Sims. You’ll always be Monet to me.

OKLAHOMA – Release
Brenna Dowell, Stefani Catour, Samantha Craus, Alyssa Jackson

GEORGIA – Release
Gigi Marino and Hayley Sanders

MICHIGAN – Release
Brianna Brown, Lauren Marinez, Ilana Gordon, Cailee Hills, Mandy Klun

UTAH – Release
Samantha Partyka, Maddy Stover, Kari Lee, Tiffani Lewis

PENN STATE – Release
Chanen Raygoza, Lauren Li, Oni Timothy, Briannah Tsang

LSU – Release
Erin Macadaeg and Myia Hambrick

FLORIDA – Release
Kennedy Baker, Grace McLaughlin, Ericha Fassbender

STANFORD – Release
Elizabeth Price

ILLINOIS – Release
Bridget Hogan and Jordyn Givens

WASHINGTON – Release
Alyssa Shermetaro, Joslyn Goings, Emily Liddle, Zoey Schaefer

AUBURN – Release
Abby Milliet and Sarah Garcia

UCLA – Release
Pua Hall and Melissa Metcalf

MINNESOTA – Release
Bailey Gardner, Ciera Gardner, Hanna Hitchcock, Abby DeMuse (walk-on)

ARKANSAS – Release
Braie Speed, Paige Zaziski, Leah MacMoyle

OREGON STATE – Release
Danielle Dessaints, Shireen Khamedoost

As of right now, the only notable things are the Brianna Brown switch to Michigan, which we already knew about, and the Kari Lee switch from Arizona to Utah, which I did not know about. Georgia doesn’t yet have anyone to fill that Brianna Brown spot, so perhaps they’ll look abroad to find someone to fill that spot who can sign during the spring period. I’m reminded of the Dowager Countess. “We’ll just have to take her abroad. In these moments, one can usually find an Italian who isn’t too picky.”

These are some gooood potential rosters. Just look at Stanford. And Florida. And Oklahoma. And Alabama. Let’s try to name all the ways they will end up disappointing us.

The last couple of weeks have not been extremely cheerful for Georgia in the recruiting department. First, Lexie Priessman decided she wanted to get her LSU on instead, and now another Cincinnati verbal, Brianna Brown, has ditched the Gymdogs for the maize-encrusted tundra of Michigan. This is not a particularly surprising development considering the total overhaul of the Georgia staff and the recruiting connection Jay Clark made with CGA when he was head coach. Even though these gymnasts verbally committed after Jay had been removed from sight, the majority of the recruiting process took place under him. In truth, I’m only surprised it took this long. 

Some Georgia fans have been freaking out, but this is far from the end of the world for the Gymdogs and does not indicate some sort of mass shunning of the Georgia program. I wouldn’t read too much into it more than the normal changes and growing pains of a new regime. It will take time for Georgia to develop into a championship program again, which was always going to be the case. The team has not been on top of the heap for a few years, so they’re not going to get the type of recruits they brought in by the busload in Suzanne’s peak years, but this is still Georgia. The words “Georgia gymnastics” carry a cachet regardless of who is in charge. It’s still a brand name.

Because of these changes, though, an interesting conversation has arisen over what the identity of the Georgia program is now and if it even has one. To me, it seems that Georgia and Oklahoma have the potential to switch places in some sense. Now, it’s Oklahoma drawing in a bunch of the nation’s top recruits (a trend I expect to continue and grow), and it may be that Georgia must become the team to find those diamond-in-the-rough Level 10s or written-off gymnasts and turn them into contributors in these years where the elites are not coming in the numbers once expected. We saw last year with Christa Tanella’s suddenly strong season that Durante has the capability to change a gymnast’s course, so I could see that becoming the new Georgia identity.  

But enough of that future racket. For the year at hand, I’m interested to see if this team can maintain the upward trajectory of results having now lost a fairly significant group in Worley, Couch, and Tanella. The incoming group does not have nearly the same pedigree or name recognition, so this may need to be the first year of Project Diamond in the Rough.

Ashlyn Broussard is the biggest recruit in this class, a WOGA girl with standout skills on multiple events who could believably contribute anywhere. She finished 17th in Senior D this year but would have been top 10 comfortably if not for an iffy beam routine.

Vault – 2013
http://www.gymnastike.org/embed/MjQ0NjgyMzY3?related=1&autoplay=false

Bars – 2013
http://www.gymnastike.org/embed/ODc1NzAxMDEy?related=1&autoplay=false

Beam – 2012
http://www.gymnastike.org/embed/NDM4NjIyNDA1?related=1&autoplay=false

Floor – 2013 JO Nationals

I would say her most important apparatus for Georgia this year is going to be floor because the team is losing three routines from last year’s lineup and, with a double layout in her routine, Broussard is the only one of the freshmen showing tumbling more difficult than a double pike (from what I’ve seen), which makes her that much more valuable. It’s not the cleanest DLO, but it still shows the power potential for big tumbling if they elect not to go with that skill. The leaps are also strong enough for this to function as a complete routine.

She’ll be in the lineup conversation on the other events as well, with a good Yfull in particular, but I’m least focused on vault for these freshmen because I expect there to be only one opening on that event. There are a number of returning and new gymnasts capable of getting that 9.800-9.850 to fill that spot, of which Broussard is one. 

The rest of the class has bits and pieces of potential, but I don’t anticipate major lineup appearances from them. I expect their contribution to be spot routines, maybe making the beginning of a lineup or two, with a bunch of “I suppose it could work” exhibitions early in the year. Both Kiera Brown and Morgan Reynolds have the competitive skills to be realistic on several events, but they are largely middle of the pack and will have to show something new to stand out enough to make some lineups. The exception to that for both gymnasts could be bars. There will be some open spots at the beginning of the lineup this year leading up to the expected Jay, Rogers, Davis back half, so they could be in the fight there. 

I haven’t seen much from Brown in terms of recent routines, but she did compete at the Nastia and the Chicago Style this year, placing well on bars at both meets. She hits her feet on the piked tkatchev in this video, but the regular tkatchev she has shown in other routines is impressively high, and both the pak and the shaposh are executed cleanly.  

Kiera Brown – Bars – 2011
http://www.gymnastike.org/embed/NTg1NTM1MDgy?related=1&autoplay=false

Kiera Brown – Vault – 2013
http://www.gymnastike.org/embed/Mjg2NjkyNzAx?related=1&autoplay=false

Reynolds competed in the same division as Broussard at JOs, finishing 12th in the AA but didn’t place in the top ten on any individual event. Still, on bars the potential for a precise handstand look is there (see the first one), and while there will be some areas of cleaning up, the jaeger and the pak are  executed well and she sticks the DLO in this routine, which is encouraging.

Morgan Reynolds – Bars – 2013
http://www.gymnastike.org/embed/Mjg5NjkyNjE0?related=1&autoplay=false

Morgan Reynolds – Floor – 2013

If I haven’t seen much from Kiera Brown in a while, I really haven’t seen anything from Rachel Schick in a while. It’s been over two years since she has competed because of ankle injuries, which means that everything is basically out the window. If she’s healthy and truly back, I think her form will be an asset to the team. She maintains straight legs on her acro skills on beam, and the same with her body shape on her Yfull (where she also gets good distance). She worked bars a ton during her injuries, as is customary, and while the potential has always been there, she’ll need a dismount. Danna has seemed bullish about her bars potential.

As for the others, Beth Roberts is another one of those NIT girls with fairly clean, relatively simply gymnastics, although she has stepped up the difficulty to a more competitive level than she was showing previously. Lauren Johnson is the final new one, and the main thing I can tell you about her is that she is in fact a completely different human from the Lauren Johnson from Gwinnett who was on Georgia’s team a few years ago. I had a moment.