An elite men's division staple event is back with a strong field.
January 29, 2025 by Edward Stephens in Preview, Video
Ultiworld’s 2025 college coverage 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.
This year’s edition of Florida Warm Up has not been the perfect welcome-to-spring East Coast event that it usually is thanks to a late-notice field reservation cancellation. The organizing committee, though, acted quickly to find a back-up site in Gainesville – two hours from its usual Tampa home – to make sure the show would go on. Logistical and financial headaches aside, the tournament is poised to be the boisterous, high-flying affair we have come to know and love. With its virtually unmatched cross-country magnetism, its unique match-play-and-rankings format, and the cows-being-released-from-the-barn-after-a-long-winter-style celebratory hijinks of the competitors, there is a lot to get excited about. Our streaming schedule is full-to-bursting with appointment viewing. Check out the full list below, and then read on as we pose five burning questions for the three-day weekend.
Follow along on the Florida Warm Up 2025 Event Page for livestreams and updates throughout the weekend.
How To Watch
We’ve got you covered for all the exciting action this weekend. You will need an Ultiworld Standard or All-Access subscription to be able to watch games from the Florida Warm Up 2025 Event Page. Or get access for your entire team and coaching staff with a 2025 College Team Pack!
The event begins January 31st, LIVE on Ultiworld.com. All broadcasted games will be available on-demand for viewing immediately following the live broadcasts.
Full Broadcast Schedule
Tournament Preview: Five Burning Questions
Will there be a Brownian De-Motion in 2025?
With the exception of #2 UNC Darkside, no program in the division has had a better run in recent years than #20 Brown Brownian Motion. B-Mo were simply brilliant last year to cap off a six-year streak of deep bracket runs with a championship, their fourth all-time.1 Could the salad days be coming to an end? They’ve graduated an astounding roster of elite-level talent since the run began: Jacques Nissen, Leo Gordon, Elliott Rosenberg, Cal Nightingale, Dylan Villeneuve, John Randolph, Talon Johnson, Azeez Adeyemi, Ken Noh, Solomon Rueschemeyer-Bailey, Mac Hecht, Ned Dick, and Eli Motycka. Roster turnover is woven into the fabric of the college game, and that may mean they take a serious step back.
Our preseason expectations have them pegged at the bubble of Nationals contention. That may be an unfair knock on the players they still have: Jason Tapper, Luca Duclos-Orsello, Oscar Low, Henry Egan, and Emmett Young can all ball. It certainly fails to take into account the best-in-class ability of coach Jake Smart to get the top gear out of every one of his players. But it might also be an accurate reflection of the tidal nature of potential in a division whose defining characteristic is change. Let’s see if B-Mo have it in them to mount another run toward the mountaintop.
Where Should You Place Your Bets?
With one notable exception – more on #17 BYU CHI below – all of the 25 teams in attendance will be making their 2025 debuts. That makes pegging a favorite difficult. Do you bet on the influx of young talent at #5 Carleton CUT? Thomas Shope, Ellis Newhouse, Nate De Morgan, and Axel Olson are all blue-chip prospects joining a strong roster of playmakers (Daniel Chen, Declan Miller, Tej Murthy). Or do you put your money on #6 Pittsburgh En Sabah Nur, whose deep, Tristan Yarter-led crew of upperclassmen have one of the highest floors in the division? Both are solid choices.
If you’re looking at both talent and recent history at the event, though, the clearest choice is #4 Massachusetts Zoodisc. Wyatt Kellman, Luca Harwood, Caelan McSweeney, Gavin Abrahamsson, and Ethan Lieman (to cherry pick just a few major names from their famously deep roster) are going to score dozens of easy buckets, and they reached semis last year after booming their way to a 2023 Warm Up win. Florida in February looks great on them.
Which Region Has the Most at Stake?
The Northwest and Southwest did serious bid-hoarding work at last weekend’s Santa Barbara Invite. How can the rest of the country respond? With nine of ten regions in action – only the Southwest will not have a representative in Gainesville – there will be plenty of opportunities. Which region needs to do the most work to make sure there are enough bids to go around later in the season? With apologies to the Southeast and New England, who both hope to pull strength bids, the clear answer is the South Central. With #3 Colorado Mamabird (not attending Warm Up) looking like the regional powerhouse, the extremely talented but less secure #11 Texas TUFF (Xavier Fuzat, John Clyde) and #13 WashU Contra (Noah Stovitz, Ben Reimler) will want to seal up strength bids early. The goal to make that happen? Quarters (or better) at Warm Up will go a long way toward making their post season a lot less stressful.
Reloaded or Rebuilding?
Some Nationals regulars other than Brown enter 2025 with big questions. #8 Vermont Chill, #14 Georgia Jojah, and #15 Minnesota2 all, like Brown, graduated seminal players. CJ Kiepert (Vermont), Adam Miller (Georgia), and Paul Krenik (Minnesota) are gone, leaving behind a massive vacuum of offensive touches and two-way playmaking for their teams. How will each of them weather the roster turnover? Are they rebuilding, or reloaded and ready? Jojah have the highest top-end with their trio of 2024 Callahan winner Aidan Downey, Cole Chanler, and Scotty Whitley, but they looked like they had a lot of work left to do with much of the rest of the roster at a clunky CCC a few months ago. Vermont boast a huge crop of freshmen and sophomores who could be ready to step up alongside Declan Kervick and Zack Watson-Stevens – but younger players sometimes need more seasoning before they’re ready. Minnesota will have to bank on the continued development of high-potential players like Max Dehlin, Austin Gin, and Gabe Jagt. Whoever hits the ground running this weekend will feel good about their potential down the road.
Who’s the Busiest Bee in the Hive?
The biggest mystery in all of ultimate right now might be how the rise of Utah ultimate will shake out at the college level. It used to be that BYU CHI were at the top, and then there was a long way down to the Beehive State’s second best. Far removed from the world beaters they were from 2019 – 2022 – college ultimate is cyclical – BYU may not even be the state’s best. They got off to a great start at SBI, dealing Cal Poly a loss and outperforming #23 Utah Valley Ultimate and Utah Zion Curtain. (Simon Dastrup and Jenson Wells looked awesome, by the way.) They’ll get to add to that resume this weekend during their annual tail-end-of-a-back-to-back-eight-game blitz. What’s different this year is that there’s a second Utah program flying Southeast: Utah State Scotsmen. The Scotsmen missed Nationals last season after a three-year qualifying streak, partly because Ben Hoffmann suffered a season-ending injury. If and when he returns to full health – he’s listed on the tournament roster – the combined force of him, younger brother Jonny Hoffmann, and Chase Smith could prove overwhelming.3 They could end up being this year’s Warm Up Dark Horses.
