Earlier this season, Jeff Graba mentioned on a broadcast that his team might be one of the youngest in the NCAA, with the majority of routines coming from underclassmen. Well, we heard this question and had to find out the answer! Who is the youngest team in the NCAA this year? And how are those young gymnasts changing the trajectory of their respective teams? Let’s dive into the data to find out.
Methodology
To determine the age of each team, we assigned a score to each gymnast based on their class year: 1 for freshmen, 2 for sophomores, 3 for juniors, and 4 for seniors or above. Years are based on the official team rosters, a redshirt freshman scored as a freshman, and so on. We then averaged this score across every competitive routine this season for each team. An average age score of 2.5 would mean that routines were equally spread across all class years. Then to understand the impact that the underclassmen had on the team, we compared each team’s ranking at the end of the regular season between last year and now.
Overall Results
To answer the question that Jeff Graba posed, Auburn is not the youngest team in the NCAA this year. In fact, Auburn is only the 23rd youngest team.
The title for youngest team goes to Utica, followed closely by…
