Rachel Love will join the Arizona women for the upcoming 2026-2027 season. Love just finished her junior season at Texas A&M and graduated this spring.
The New York native arrived at Texas A&M in fall 2022. She competed at the 2023 SEC Championships and was highlighted by a lifetime best and 20th place finish in the 1650 free with a 16:17.33. A week later she swam to a lifetime best 4:47.60 500 free at Texas A&M’s last chance meet.
She returned for her sophomore season and finished 12th in the 1650 free at 2024 SECs in a 16:21.24. She also swam a season best 4:47.95 500 free and a lifetime best 1:48.76 200 free. She then battled injury during her junior season during 2024-2025 and did not compete at all from April 2024-April 2025.
Love returned for her senior year this past fall but was athletically a junior. She swam season bests at midseason with a 4:48.54 500 free and a 16:28.56 1650 free. In January, she swam to a lifetime best in the 200 back with a 1:56.22 during the Texas vs Texas A&M dual meet.
Love’s Best SCY Times Are:
- 1650 free: 16:17.33
- 500 free: 4:47.60
- 200 free: 1:48.76
- 200 back: 1:56.22
The Arizona women finished 2nd at the 2026 Big 12 Championships with 1442.5 points, only behind Arizona State who scored 1660.5 points. Arizona was led by Kayman Neal who scored 87 individual points.
Based on her best times, Love is a huge pickup for Arizona. Her best times would have been 3rd in the 1650 free, 5th in the 500 free, and on the border of the ‘A’ and ‘B’ final of the 200 back. Arizona scored 40 points in the 1650 free and were led by Ava Sutphin who swam a 16:35.28 for 5th. Sutphin will be a senior this fall.
Love is not the only swimmer on the Texas A&M women’s team to be joining Arizona this fall as Kailey Kennedy will arrive at Arizona after spending her freshman and sophomore seasons with the Aggies. Kennedy just finished her sophomore season.
the Jay Holmes effect
blaire DESTROYED this a&m team
Why is she not succeeding?
not everybody succeed, even the good coaches can fail, it takes sometimes luck and getting those first good recruits to build upon…
If you look at a general comparison of how the team did last year vs this year then yes, it looks like Blaire is the problem. However, everyone on the guys side dropped time this year. They lost 3 of their best guys to transferring who all wished for bigger and better things. I’d argue that with the exception of Baylor, the other two transfers would have done the same times at A&M that they did at their transfer schools had they stayed. Another NCAA scorer had a red shirt year. It takes time to build a team. They’ll be back next year and better. The team culture at A&M is the best it’s been in a long time.