At season’s midway point, Utah gymnastics team is among nation’s elite

How good is the freshmen class going to be? How much impact would the fifth-year seniors have on the lineup? Can Utah’s experienced gymnasts, who were so integral in the team’s success last year, be the driving force again? Can the rest of the country match the Utes’ talent?

Those were just a few of the many questions revolving around Utah’s gymnastics team going into the 2022 season.

Now with the Utes at the midway point of the regular season, some of those questions have been answered, at least in part.

The following is our analysis of where the Utes are, have been and are going in 2022.

Let’s start with the much-hyped rookie class of Grace McCallum, Sage Thompson, Kara Eaker and Amelie Morgan. This class arguably was the highest rated the Utes have had based on the gymnasts’ elite experience.

As a group, there is a sense we still haven’t seen the freshmen reach their potential, which isn’t a bad thing.

Thompson has been a steady contributor on the vault and Morgan is looking more and more comfortable in the leadoff spot on bars and beam. On the latter she has scored 9.9 in the past two meets and her confidence seems to be growing as much as her scores.

McCallum hasn’t disappointed skill-wise but she has suffered from some of the inconsistencies that plague elite gymnasts in making the transition to college. The biggest challenge is switching the focus from high rates of difficulty to focusing on consistent, clean routines.

McCallum has had three falls this year, indicative of the transition, but coach Tom Farden likes to remind everyone she is behind her teammates too because she missed much of the preseason touring with fellow Olympians.

“We are dealing with her preseason and season at the same time,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of other athletes who were legends dealing with this.”

When she does hit, McCallum is as good as any elite in the country, as witnessed by her 39.675 and 39.625 all-around scores this year against Oklahoma and Stanford, respectively.

As for Eaker, we really haven’t seen what she can do since she has been sidelined with an ankle injury suffered in the season opener. Farden, though, is hopeful she can start working her way back into the lineup in the coming weeks.

“We have the possibility of some of our lineups like beam and floor changing up based on one athlete coming back,” he said of Eaker.

So overall let’s grade the freshmen as incomplete, but promising.

One area that could be affected by Eaker’s return is balance beam, where the Utes have had some uncharacteristic struggles in two of the past three meets. Two falls against UCLA nearly cost Utah the meet. But just as she did against Arizona State, Maile O’Keefe was superb as the anchor, scoring a 9.975 to clinch the win over the Bruins.

Her savviness is reflective of how important the presence of the experienced athletes on the team are. From O’Keefe, to Cristal Isa, Alexia Burch, Abby Paulson and Sydney Soloski, Utah’s returners are tremendous anchors in the lineups.

Other returners, such as Cammy Hall, Jaedyn Rucker and Lucy Stanhope seem to be on an upswing and that bodes well for the Utes.

One gymnast in particular, Jillian Hoffman, has been he biggest surprise as the leadoff on vault and floor. She is working on an upgrade on the vault, but Farden is wondering if they will even mess with it, given how well the vault is going for her now. She won the floor in her debut on the event against Arizona State with a 9.975 and followed it with a 9.9 against Stanford.

“It’s rare for somebody who sat out her first two years to catch fire like this,” Farden said of Hoffman. “It speaks volumes of her fortitude and work ethic.”

Heading into the second half of the season, Farden will continue to play around with his lineups. He almost seems to enjoy the last-minute shakeups many coaches try to avoid. But he is still looking for extra tenths, performers who do better in one spot or another, etc.

The Utes know they need every tenth they can get. If they forget that, they can always look back at the experience of barely beating UCLA, or even the rankings where they are right in the middle of the Top 5.

Right now Michigan is No. 1 with a 198.035 average, followed by Oklahoma (197.64), Utah (197.54), Florida (197.535) and LSU (197.258).

There isn’t much separating those teams, for good or bad.

The Utes have come a long way as a team, but there is still a long way to go.