Four defeats in the Sprouts Farmers Market Collegiate Quad, that’s how the 2025 season started for Arkansas. They are yet to win an away meet, which currently stands at 0-4. Adding to it, Arkansas has lost 9 meets out of the 16 they have competed in.  And to top it all, the team has hit a hat trick of losses after losing their last three meets against Alabama, Kentucky, and Missouri and now has a record of 2-6 in the SEC conference. Thus, they are out of the conference! And now the coach has something to say!

The Razorbacks are out of the 2025 Southeastern Conference (SEC) Gymnastics Championships. A last hope was brought in for athletes to boost their qualifying scores when the Razorback gymnastics head coach, who had previously pointed out the downsides of the team, appealed to the NCAA, but that didn’t work out either, and she has come out with a statement. What did she say?

Arkansas gymnastics coach Jordyn Wieber made a post on March 20, 2025, on her Instagram where her statement recalled the time when she appealed to the NCAA to compete in Oregon, citing, “Earlier this week and with the full support of our Director of Athletics, the University of Arkansas submitted a request to the NCAA Gymnastics Committee. Specifically, a request was made to allow our student-athletes to compete at a regular season meet at Oregon State and add to their qualifying score in an equitable fashion.”  The request sought permission for their student-athletes to participate in a regular-season meet at Oregon State University to improve their National Qualifying Score (NQS) equitably.

But both, “the original request and a subsequent appeal were denied.” Of course, the coach didn’t feel great after the rejection, and as highlighted in her Instagram post, the Arkansas coach said, “I am disappointed for our student-athletes that they will not be given the opportunity to compete this weekend under the same scoring parameters afforded to every other Division I program.” The NQS had always been important, but its significance increased after the conference was realigned.

The SEC announced the realignment in a news statement in December 2024, stating that the new format “will include the top eight teams (determined by NQS), with Seeds 5-8 competing in the afternoon session, and Seeds 1-4 competing in the evening session.” Previously, all eight teams qualified regardless of their national ranking, with four teams competing in each session. Now, one team would lose out. That one team happens to be the Razorbacks gymnastics.

Despite a historic season that included multiple upset wins and attendance records, the No. 16 Arkansas Razorbacks gymnastics will not be permitted to compete in Birmingham, where the 2025 SEC Gymnastics Championship will unfold in the latter half of March. This shocker comes after they have had a season filled with ups and downs.

Razorbacks 2025 gymnastics season so far

The 2025 season was a historic one for the Razorbacks gymnastics. To start with, at the beginning of February, the team hosted the number 2 Florida Gators, and not only did they win the meet, but they won it historically. This was their second victory on the second-ranking team in the country, and the team score (197.175) was a new season high Arkansas (until February 7) also registered new bests on vault (49.300) and bars (49.400) to help push toward the win.

This meeting also had a record attendance of 7,341 —the sixth-highest turnout in program history.  Next up, their gymnasts were also not so shy about setting individual records. Graduate transfer Mati Waligora registered her career-best against the Gators gymnastics with 9.950 on bars and 9.925 on the floor. Freshman Joscelyn Roberson was consistently hitting 9.900+ on beam and co-won the all-around title in the season opener.

The season didn’t end well for the Razorbacks gymnastics as they lost three matches in a row in their last three meets. First, it was Alabama, followed by Kentucky, and then Missouri Tigers, but they didn’t go down without creating history here either. Their season high against Florida was broken in the Kentucky meet when they hit a score of 197.725.  In the meet against LSU in January, Arkansas had 9,874 fans in attendance, the third-highest in program history, and set a new student attendance record of 1,705.