Freshman Notes: Alabama and Michigan

We're getting there. NLI week is (pretty much) behind us—I'm looking at you Alabama—and slowly but surely, we're moving toward the coaches' poll and preseason intrasquads time of year. But for oday, I'm looking at the freshmen from Alabama and Michigan. Among the top 10 teams in the country, these two freshman classes will be the most essential for their schools because of how much scoring potential both these teams have lost since last season. These freshmen must contribute significant routines (in both quality and number) this year.

ALABAMA


Alabama is the team I'm keenest to watch to start the 2015 season. Not only have they lost a legendary head coach, but they've also lost 11 of the 24 routines from Super Six last year. The 2015 team will be a brand new Tide in all the ways. This could go a lot of different directions.

As for the newbies, Alabama brings in a fairly solid freshman class in 2015, even if it's not brimming with routines. There aren't 11 competition-level new performances in this group, but that's OK. This freshman group will not be expected to make up the whole Jacob/Milliner/Demeo deficit. With Kayla Williams coming back from injury and several usable routines that didn't make the lineups last year, Alabama shouldn't be hurting too much for depth on the majority of events, which will take some pressure off this new group. (Helpfully, Gymtide has done a rundown of all the routines shown in the recent intrasquad to give a comprehensive look at current team depth. It's worth a read.)

Still, I do expect moments of essential freshman contribution, particularly from Mackenzie Brannan. As is the theme for the freshmen from these two schools, she competed as a junior elite last quad before making the switch back to L10, so she has the skills on each event to be a realistic contender for four lineups.

Vault


Bars


Beam


Floor


Let's start with beam because it has been an occasional issue. Brannan would have won her division easily at JO Nationals the last two years if not for falls on beam, so consistency will be a topic of conversation. Regardless of whether those problems manifest themselves in NCAA, I do expect her to see time on beam because her work there is on the same elite level as the other events and because Alabama needs to find some new beamers somewhere.

That said, the places where I expect Brannan's contribution to be the most significant and frequent are vault and bars. That Yurchenko 1.5 is crisp and clean. Her legs are firmly together in the air and she completes the vault quite easily. I could certainly see retaining the 1.5, but either way, she should be in the lineup. On bars, Brannan's work is made for NCAA. Look at those handstands. Yes. She has cleaned up her bars routine significantly since junior elite days, and almost everything is precise these days. Put her on the Jacob/Demeo bam-bam stuck DLO program, and this should be a back half of the lineup routine.