Freshman Notes: Oklahoma and Georgia

Why does every team have a hundred thousand freshmen this year? Cool it, people. They're not going out of style. Today, we look at Oklahoma and Georgia.

OKLAHOMA
Boomer. The problem with winning a national championship for the first time is that now anything less than a national championship is a disappointment. No more of this "we're really proud of how much we went through to finish third" business. It's an every-year thing now, and Oklahoma will face some challenges to repeat in 2015 without Spears, Mooring, and Albright, who contributed 6 routines across three events last postseason, most significantly the late-lineup 9.9-athon that was Taylor Spears on bars and beam.

On the bright side, the Sooners have several new freshmen who can believably fill those scoring gaps, bringing with them way more than 6 lineup-ready routines. The first thing to be said about this class is that it officially signals the end of the "Oklahoma doesn't have the power/difficulty on the leg events" narrative era. That comment didn't really apply last year either, but it's definitely dead now. You can't use it anymore. This freshman class is power city.

Let's start with the most well-known of the newcomers, Brenna Dowell, who will be joining the team officially in January and made the smart choice to start this year instead of trying to stick it out in elite with the hope of making an Olympic team that was never going to happen. Not even getting the alternate spot for Worlds this year was the flashing neon sign she needed saying GET TO OKLAHOMA.

Anyone who has watched elite lately is familiar with Dowell's gymnastics, and she's another of those who can conceivably slot in anywhere in any lineup and be a rare AAer for this Oklahoma team. The only thing that would potentially hold her back is consistency, but I expect to see a lot of Dowell this year.

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