LSU’s incoming class gets an extra boost
A welcome offseason surprise.
The LSU gymnastics team added a new member to their incoming 2025 freshman class Saturday when Molly Brinkman announced she was flipping her commitment from Clemson to LSU despite signing with Clemson on April 15. Clemson fired head coach Amy Smith and her entire staff on April 18, which released Brinkman from her obligation and allowed her to reopen her recruiting. Brinkman is a four-star recruit according to College Gym News’ 2025 rankings, and she’ll be a great addition to LSU’s three five-star recruits enrolling this summer.
Brinkman began her level 10 career in 2021 at Gold Medal Gymnastics in Arizona, her current gym. She broke onto the scene in 2024 with 9.900+ scores on vault and a season high of 9.950. During the fall of 2024, she committed to Clemson. However, her 2025 season has been even better with more consistency in the all around and more strength of both vault and floor, areas in which LSU tends to be strong. The jump from Clemson, a new program that’s been ranked as one of the lower teams to make regionals in their first two seasons, to LSU, a program that is a lot better, is the result of that leap in performance in the past season, one that concludes this weekend at level 10 nationals. It should be interesting to see how she does there and what she does when she calls the real Death Valley home.