The 2025 coaches’ preseason poll is out — Amelie Morgan talks to GymCastic

The 2025 NCAA preseason coaches’ poll is out. 

I wrote about the College Gym News preseason poll last week. 

The top three in both polls are the same: Oklahoma, LSU, and Florida. The coaches picked Cal as their fourth and put Utah in fifth, whereas the CGN staff did the opposite. 

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Another big shift was UCLA, in 10th in the coaches’ poll but seventh in the CGN rankings. That feels more accurate based on their performance last season; I felt the CGN ranking was a bit more from the heart than from the head. 

My big surprise in the coaches’ poll was Arkansas. CGN had them in 12th, but the coaches placed them in eighth. That feels more like admiration for Jordyn Wieber, the Razorbacks’ head coach, than the reality of their potential this season. 

Oklahoma was solidly in the lead with the coaches, with 42 votes for first place compared to LSU’s 6. It seems the coaches have the idea that LSU winning (or Oklahoma losing) was a fluke and won’t repeat. They’re probably not wrong, but I do think LSU has some serious raw talent and if they cultivate it and keep athletes healthy, coming out on top won’t be quite such a fluke. 

Other gym news

The Gymternet has the latest installment of You Asked, the Gymternet Answered, full of tea as always. 

College Gym News has a rundown of all the news out of the preseason. They also have several lineup previews.  

The Minnesota Star-Tribune did a phenomenal job on this profile of University of Minnesota star Mya Hooten.

Patrick Kiens and Daymon Jones, who coached the Romanian WAG team at the Paris Olympics, were hired as the new co-head coaches at World Champions Centre, the gym owned by Simone Biles’ parents. 

Madison Kocian graduated from Baylor University’s PA program this week. 

This post from UCLA about Jordan Chiles is the cutest. 

Jaedyn Rucker tore her Achilles and is out for the season at Utah. 

Five at The IX; Amelie Morgan on GymCastic

Jessica O’Beirne at GymCastic interviewed Amelie Morgan, a senior at Utah and a British Olympian who contributed to the historic bronze won by Great Britain at the Tokyo Olympics. Morgan talks about being an international student in the NCAA (note: she now has a green card, which allows her to receive NIL money; her story about that process is arguably the best part of the interview) and how different American universities are from the British system. She also gives a few details about the changes within British Gymnastics. All in all, a really great look inside an international athlete’s experience inside the insular NCAA system.