LSU gymnastics head coach Jay Clark met with media Monday to discuss the Tigers gym squad and more. LSU will host an exhibition on Dec.16 and will kick off the season with a home meet against Ohio State on Jan.5 at the PMAC.

- Aleah Finnegan is the first active LSU gymnast to qualify for the Olympics.

- On paper, the team looks good, so it's easy to get excited about this team. He says the team still has a lot of question marks with transfers and people coming off injuries.

- This is the largest team he's ever coached (23).

- Feels this team could be special if they can stay healthy.

- Haleigh Bryant is coming back for her senior season. Clark says she's much more mature and in a leadership role this year. She wants to finish her college career with a bang, and she still has one more year of eligibility because of COVID, so she'll make that decision after the season.

- Excited to have Kiya Johnson back from a season ending leg injury. Says they expect her to be fully recovered for the season.

- Feels with the depth of the team that they won't need so many people to do every event. They rode Aliyah and Haleigh on every event for most of the season due to injuries, so he hopes they can get them some more rest if the team can stay healthy.

- Says he's not interested in the individual awards, they just want the team to win.

- Says if putting people in all events will help the team, they'll do it, if it won't help the team, they won't do it just for individual awards.

- Says they have a lot of mouths to feed. Needs this team to be selfless, because with 23 players, not everyone is going to get as much play time as they want.

- He's excited to have SEC's in New Orleans again. Last time it was there, they won. They want the fans to get excited and come and set an attendance record.

- Feels destination cities like New Orleans are a better than the smaller towns like Birmingham because it'll encourage more people to come.

- Team has 11 seniors (4th, 5th or 6th years).