The postseason — some might call it the best season — has arrived.
Starting Thursday evening against No. 13 Stanford, Denver and either BYU or Utah State, Utah will compete for the chance to advance to the NCAA gymnastics championships and contend for a national title.
From here on out, the Red Rocks must finish in the top two in their meets — four-team meets all — in order to advance to the national championship meet itself. Do it twice, on Thursday and again on Saturday, and Utah is in.
Ranked No. 4 in the country, Utah should get there. The Red Rocks should advance to nationals for a record 49th time. Once there, the Red Rocks could end their national title drought. There are lot of compelling reasons why all of that will happen. But there are also more than a few compelling reasons why it won’t.
Why believe in Utah
Let’s get some of the obvious out of the way first.
Utah is likely to advance to the national championships because that is what Utah has always done. Quite literally. Utah has qualified for the national championships 48 times, the maximum amount possible. The Red Rocks have never missed the national championships —pre-NCAA and throughout the NCAA era of the sport. Utah is the only program in the country that can say that.
Moreover, Utah is hosting regionals this year and the Red Rocks are pretty close to unbeatable in the Huntsman Center. Utah is 45-1 on campus over the last decade. The only loss was in 2019 against a great UCLA team, at that time the defending national champs. Forty-four other teams have visited the Huntsman Center in the last 10 years and none of them have walked away victorious.
There are a lot more reasons to believe Utah will make it back to nationals, though, and once there maybe even win the program’s first national championship in 30 years.
A top-six ranking on every event
