re: Remove

Did you all see where Alyona ruptured her Achilles during Pan Ams verification? Wishing her a speedy recovery.

Gnat got an assistant coaching job at Penn State. Sure will miss her!

Good question. There is certainly an opening

Does anyone know how often the gymnasts train in the summer? Looks like all of the freshmen are on campus. Not sure what the rules are for the summer. I can see arriving to campus early to get adjusted but I always worry about burnout with newbies.

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My question is for anyone who wants to answer, who do you see making the most improvement from last year? Or who do you foresee being able to contribute more next year? I know Kiya and Kai are going to be great. But I would like to know who already on the team will make the biggest leap.

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Of the current kids on the team Desiderio need to step it up this offseason and expand her roles to putting up bigger scores on more than one event, especially on floor. Ferrer easily is the next biggest name that comes to mind, she has to step up on the power events and try to improve a bit on her form on bars. Zero reason she shouldn't be putting up nice scores for us on the power events alone. I was very shocked at how behind she was on the power events when she came in. I don't know if something went down at the end of fall for her but she didn't look in shape or ready.

A lot of kids only focus mainly on like 2 or 3 events but they got to take their routines to the next level. The sophomores (this years juniors) need to start moving those mid 9.8's to 9.9's. I feel extremely confident about where Kai and Kiya are right now. I hope Caitlin Smith can surprise us and give us a nice bars routine.

Adding Kamryn Ryan will help us a lot on vault and floor.

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Ferrer....her vault scared me, especially against Arizona. The one she did vs. Alabama wasn’t too bad. Do you see her changing her vault for next year? She just didn’t seem comfortable with it to me.

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I am pretty sure she still trains yurchenko style vaults but I am hoping she can fix her current vault. I do like K. Ryan's full a lot on vault, its pretty clean.


As for Desiderio, unless she gets more fit (which is an absolute must), they need to tone down the difficulty. Its ridiculous that they keep shoving that 2nd and third pass despite having low chest positions every week the last two years. Makes zero sense to me. This is where OU separates themselves from LSU, they construct routines that maximizes scores and minimizes deductions. I am all for doing difficulty, but when the kid cannot get through 2 routines in a entire season with proper chest positions that is bad coaching. Water it down until she gets into better shape where she can do some of these passes.

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Regarding Ferrer, she used to have a pretty good full on vault. There are quite a few videos on YouTube of her full when she was elite. I think she switched from the full when she stepped back down to Level 10. With the depth on vault next year, I fear she probably won’t make the lineup if she doesn’t improve.

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Ferrer should be in the floor lineup next year. Zero excuses for someone like her not to be. That IS her best event by far and she has excelled with it at the JO and elite level. Her vault consistency is what it will come down to. That said, I really like the 3 other freshmen on vault (Kai, Kiya and Ryan). I think we will be fine there with Edwards, Ruby, and Edney. Got to find some consistency on those 1 1/2's. Desiderio, Kirby and Caitlin Smith are training here as well.

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As for Desiderio, I don’t think DD will ever be in favor of downgrading. Based on her past comments, she only likes to downgrade due to injury (Lexie, McKenna, & Reagan). Rarely have I seen her downgrade based on lack of ability. I think it’s because she has a ton of confidence in the gymnasts. This is a good thing but it also can work against you.

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while I love DD I will disagree with her when it comes to that and I think its a dumb stance to take. There is no knock on Desiderio's talent and her abilities. Issue is she physically is incapable of executing these skills in her current condition. She doesn't get the pop off the floor she needs to execute those 2nd and 3rd passes. While she may be able to land under control, landing with low chest positions are just as bad as its still a deduction. So the coaches are putting routines out there with built in deductions. I am all for putting out max difficulty but the kids have to be able to execute the skills. Why not start with lower difficulty and try to build on it as you go? If you can execute the more difficult stuff, keep it in, if not remove it. She starts with a double layout, she really doesn't need anything more difficulty wise.

I just think when It comes down to winning a national title. Apart from executing during the championship meet, having properly structured routines that maximizes your athletes scores is another big part of the equation. OU has it figured it out despite not being as "talented" as Florida and UCLA.
Sorry for my rant

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Also, what do you think Jay’s impact will be as co-head coach? Will this change anything? Deep down I feel if Jay can have more of a voice, he can maybe get the program over the hump. Jay was apart of many of Georgia’s national championships..so he kinda knows what it takes to win. That’s not a knock on DD, but I feel Jay should have more control.

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DD will always have the final say until she is gone but Jay will be able to have more "freedom/input". Dynamics don't change that much but there are things he will want to do differently than what DD normally does.

I hope Jay does not make the same mistakes he did at Georgia when he takes over for LSU soon. Didn't think he had the proper staff at UGA and they seemed to fall apart in the post season for some reason (which goes back to teams being mentally tough). His ability to haul in top 5 classes every year though will always keep LSU in contention, and fortunately that is one of the biggest part of the game to competing nationally. Jay will do great here. Jay was a major part of why Georgia won those titles as he brought in world class talent every year. I hate Suzanne but she was special when it came to competing, her girls knew how to compete under the toughest situations and had that killer instinct. Not a lot of coaches are good with this aspect of coaching.

That said, every program around the country would be idiots to not study what OU is doing right now. That have a system down where their athletes are mentally tough, able to compete consistently every single year. Their routine construction is superb, and it allows them to maximize their team scores.

Maybe Sami Durante since he rmom is a coach, hopefully she has that coach on the floor instinct.