On the eighth day of Christmas Ultiworld gave to me...a magic 8 ball's take on wild predictions!
December 19, 2024 by Patrick Stegemoeller in Preview with 0 comments
Ultiworld’s coverage of the 2025 college season is presented by Spin Ultimate; all opinions are those of the author(s). Find out how Spin can get you, and your team, looking your best this season.
It’s time to unwrap some presents as we introduce the 12 Days of College Ultimate. For the next 12 days, we will be releasing one gift per day, though don’t count on getting any holiday fowl: it’s all college ultimate. From highlight videos to player chatter to a season predictions, we’ve got a little something for everyone.
On the eighth day of the 12 Days of College Ultimate, Patrick Stegemoeller consults his Magic 8 Ball to see if some of your hot takes are certain or whether you should ask again next year.
It’s that time of year again my friends. Time to un-fog the future and see what 2025 has in store. At least, what is has in store when it comes to eight specific predictions about the upcoming college ultimate season. Who knows what else is going to happen out there?
As per usual, readers submitted predictions via various social media platforms, eight of which have been selected at semi-random via an in-house network of obsequious interns for me to ask a powerful Magic 8 Ball if they will come true.
Now, I have not gone back over the past couple years to run the numbers on the success rate of the Magic 8 Ball’s answers, but I’m going to assume it is 100%. So feel confident that everything you read here WILL come to pass. Maybe confident enough to put some money on it. And then maybe give your boy a little piece of the action after you win. What seems fair? Like 5%? Yeah, that seems fair. It’s a guaranteed thing.1
Minnesota Men’s Going All The Way
Grey Duck….Oops, I mean the Gopher’s of University of Minnesota Ultimate Team, are going all the way!!!
— Seth the Blond (@thelisten.bsky.social) December 10, 2024 at 10:49 AM
“You May Rely On It”
You gotta watch out for a monkey’s paw type situation when consulting the 8 Ball with these predictions. So while the tragically renamed University of Minnesota Men’s Ultimate team will go all the way… it’s vague as to where. Unfortunately it may mean “go all the way to completely rebrand away from the Grey Duck name and identity so that a school’s club sports department can chase the doomed chalice of legitimacy.” Which would be a tragedy. (Never forget the quack chants at 2016 semis.)
Georgia Tech > Georgia
“Yes, Definitely”
This is a good prediction. Just the right amount of heat. And even better news, apparently correct.
Georgia Tech haven’t made Nationals since 2012, while Georgia have been mainstays for the better part of a decade, but with the Grossberg brothers on the scene, all seems possible. Hopefully this doesn’t forecast some horrible accident that keeps Aidan Downey from playing this season. Maybe it will be an AWESOME accident that makes him rich as hell and he decides to take a luxury airship tour around the world instead of spending a 6th year on frisbee. Like, can’t you kinda imagine Downey wearing a top hat and a monocle while enjoying a more sophisticated form of travel?
Also, important to note that this doesn’t necessarily means Georgia Tech will make Natties. Could mean that they upset Georgia at Southeast Regionals and then, drunk on victory and confidence (and maybe also actually drunk) they get upset by Vanderbilt.
Ave Maria Finally Make Nationals
Ave Maria finally makes it to nationals.
— Nicholas Fitzgerald (@NicholasFitzg10) December 10, 2024
“It Is Certain”
The long national nightmare is over! Finally! I guess!
I was unaware of the plight of Ave Maria, an American school named after a German song named after a Latin prayer from a play named after a lady from Scotland (Maybe the school isn’t named after the song but it really seems like it should be).
But the past two seasons Ave Maria have lost on universe point in the game-to-go to Nationals to the same team, Berry, a school named after berries2. That’s genuinely tragic and I feel psyched that the choir is going to get over the finish line this year.
Stray thought but the use of “finally” in the prediction makes me thing of what is, for me, the iconic “finally” uttered about a team making Mationals. What’s so sick about that yawp is that the guy whose equine scream we hear is very clearly not a player on the team, and I’ve long liked to imagine that he is an alum from 2-3 years ago who still lives near campus and makes rookies swipe him into the dining hall.
Middlebury Women Miss Natties
“Without A Doubt”
Ultiworld editor extraordinaire Theresa Diffendal coming through with the spice! Not sure what beef Theresa has with the Pranksters but think on your sins Middlebury because the 8 Ball has spoken and you’ll be spending May watching from the couch. Maybe they sent her a roster with a bunch of misspelled names or something, but let this be a lesson about the immense power of copy editors.
This will be a pretty substantial moment for the D-III landscape, ending a Nationals streak that goes back to 2019, which is an eon in D-III years. But maybe it is for the best, going back to a time when the gods of D-III routinely struck down the proud and successful by making sure that no one had sufficiently developed talent pools to really be good for more than a few seasons at a time. That’s heritage.
Notre Dame Women’s Finally Take Down Michigan and Make Nationals
“Better Not Tell You Now”
Another finally! Nice. Unfortunately it doesn’t look great for Notre Dame, who haven’t been to Nationals since 2017. Which is a shame, because I’ve always appreciated that Notre Dame’s frisbee teams seem like genuine weirdos at a school full of people who all appear to have won a lifetime supply of khakis and finance internships. While this may not be the year Echo knock Flywheel off their perch and make Nationals, they should be fun to watch with Lily Hobday and Claire Hackl back for their junior campaigns.
All Four National Champs Come From One State
“Signs Point To Yes”
Okay wow, huge news. So this of course leaves us with the question: which state?
Most likely has got to be Minnesota, right? Multiple bites at the apple in D-III from the Carletons and St. Olafs of the world, and a chance for Carleton (Snob’s Version) to win D-I Natties in both gender divisions that can be described as “plausible.”
Good arguments for Vermont as well (although maybe not since we know Middlebury (W) are apparently missing Natties…), and you don’t have to squint to see an Ego/Fugue/Portland/Lewis & Clark quadrangle coming through for Oregon. Can North Carolina scrounge up enough D-III juice to make this a possibility? Do Davidson and Elon want to start pulling their goddamn weight?
Does Canada get to count as all one state for this exercise? Based on many of your predictions about Ottawa (M) being an unstoppable juggernaut, the great white north apparently has the men’s division sewn up and all that’s holding them back is what appears to be… zero D-III teams participating in the series.
Either way, whichever state pulls this off gets to make their state flag the new USAU logo and can select one (1) of their former governors to be the new USAU CEO. Here’s hoping it is in fact Minnesota, excited to see what Jesse Ventura has in store for us.
Gabe Dowd Wins OROTY
“Concentrate and Ask Again”
Deciding that this answer is not directed to me, but to “Benson” since Offensive Rookie of the Year is not an award that as of yet exists. Assuming of course that that is what OROTY refers to. Some other possibilities:
- Only Rookie on the Yacht
- One Returner Open to Yearning
- Organ Retracted Over Tricky Yeast
- Otto Really Overshared that Yearbook
As you can see, none look likely, so I think Benson needs to focus up next time.
Fauxdags Beat the Hodags
We’re beating the Hodags
— The Fauxdags (@FauxdagLove) December 11, 2024
“Don’t Count On It”
I will tell you what reader, I very badly wanted this one to be true.
I desperately wanted to write about how funny it would be for a B team to beat their A team. How we thought Wisconsin missing Nationals would be the bottom of the barrel for a program in decline, but in fact the bottom of that barrel is far, far lower, has actually undergone some pretty substantial renovations, building out an entire subterranean lair/wine cave within which their are depths yet to plumb, and from which all the dirt removed during construction has been shoveled onto the Hodags’ graves.
But alas.
