Sometimes numerical vengeance can be the key to success for a program looking to thrive in the highly competitive college gymnastics landscape. Oklahoma spent its 2019 campaign touting the motto #pztsf (.0375, the amount by which it lost the 2018 national championship title to UCLA) as motivation to dominate throughout the season, which culminated in a fourth national title for the Sooners. But for Georgia, a much more somber number will be on everyone’s minds going into the 2023 season: 46.625. This number is the culmination of what may have been Georgia’s most embarrassing moment as a program, at least in recent memory: Its five-miss beam rotation against Florida early in the 2022 season.
The Gymdogs were a top 10 beam lineup a mere 13 years ago when Georgia ended the 2009 season ranked first on the apparatus. So what has happened in those 13 years that led the Gymdogs from a dynasty of domination that culminated in five consecutive national titles to a lineup that failed to break 49 in half of the 2022 meets?
Shown above is Georgia’s beam NQS (blue) and average team beam score (red), with the overall trend in scores being shown with the black lines. It is important to note a change in the NQS system for the 2021 and 2022 seasons, which takes into account…
