With the NCAA championships starting tomorrow and the fact that I already made my predictions last week, there isn’t much left to write about for this season. As a result, for my last passion blog of the year, I want to give my team power rankings of the 2023 recruited class or next year’s rising freshman. In a sport that has a relatively small roster size, only 12-20 gymnasts per team, recruiting is an essential element to maintaining a successful program. In navigating a fine balance between bringing in gymnasts for development and their long term potential in addition to their immediate contributions, coaches must approach the recruiting process like advanced chess players. They have to identify their team weaknesses, strengths, and then make choices based on their best assumptions and vision for the team that may not come to fruition until many years later.
Additionally, coaches are constrained by budget limitations that are much tighter than in more revenue-rich collegiate sports like football, basketball, and hockey. Most teams have, at most, the equivalent of around 6 full athletic scholarships to be split throughout the roster in addition to opportunities for earning financial aid, grants, and academic scholarships. This is extremely different than a sport like football where large teams like Penn State have nearly 100 players on full scholarship in addition to team NIL deals that enrich the financial incentive to be on the team here. Consequently, coaches must carefully consider what gymnasts are worth investing scholarship money into and contemplate competition from other schools that may be able to offer more money. All in all, the the process of recruiting is extremely complicated and I do not envy the position of the coaches responsible for it in the slightest. When it’s all said and done, most athletes commit for reasons that are entirely out of their control such as their view of the team culture, their academic hopes, family connections, proximity to home, and subjective opinion of the university. With that being said, here are the top 5 teams that I believe got the best recruiting class of rising freshman for the 2023-2024 NCAA season:
#1: Nebraska
I think that most people in the college gymnastics community would agree with me as having Nebraska as the clear pick for best recruiting class of the year. When I was scrolling through Instagram in October and the best high school seniors were announcing their verbal commitments, I could not believe how many of them were to Nebraska. Their class is deep with stars such as multiple-time junior national champion Alex Nitache, junior world team member Max Odden, and current national team member Cole Partridge. Two of their other commits, Chase Mondi and Anthony Koppie, are extremely talented and will certainly be highly contributing collegiate gymnasts, even if they don’t have the accolades of the former ones mentioned. As competitive as the Big Ten is, look out for Nebraska as a front-runner next year to take on the top teams if they can actualize this talent come season.
#2: Illinois
As a team that did fairly well this year despite not having the strongest freshman class, Illinois will be looking to really make a run next year with the class they brought in. Their class features a lot of gymnasts that I grew up competing with in Florida like Alex Tapanes, Dylan Shepperd, and Garret Schooley. They also brought in two incredible pommel-horse specialists, Brandon Dang and Preston Ngai, to a program that is iconic for pommel horse guys. Illinois has easily one of the best pommel horse lineups in the nation and will need to replace the current Big Ten champion and Senior National Team Member, Ian Skirkey.
#3: Stanford
With the current talent that Stanford has, they wouldn’t have to recruit anyone and would still dominate the NCAA next year. That being said, the cardinals still have a very talented class that will look to make big contributions once some of their top guys graduate over the next few years. Their class is led by junior world team members David Shamah and Zach Green, both of whom are world class in the junior field on parallel bars and high bar. Fortunately, Stanford’s insane depth will probably allow these freshman a good chance to compete at the earlier meets next year to get them acclimated to the college environment and ready for bigger competitions down the road.
#4: Penn State
One great thing about our recruiting scene for next year is that we only lose one senior while bringing in four really talented guys that have potential for an immediate impact on our team. Our top recruit, Akseli, is from Finland and has incredible experience in international competition. One of his stronger events is floor which will fit really well into our lineup as this has been one of our consistently weakest events this year. In addition to Akseli, our other three recruits are really solid all-arounders that will give us some much needed depth that we lacked this year.
#5: Michigan
With Michigan going all out in recruiting last year with two of the best freshman in the country, Fred Richard and Landen Blixt, their class this year is certainly not as flashy but still very strong. With the number of all-arounders that they already have on the team, they went for the strategy of picking a lot of event specialists that are a the top of their class on a single apparatus. Consequently, while Michigan may have not gotten any huge names, their class blends very well into their current team structure and could enhance their team score tremendously.