Jacob Wimberly has announced on Instagram that he will transfer to Texas for the 2025-2026 season and join the team as a member of the class of 2028. Wimberly just finished his freshman season at rival Texas A&M and is on the pre-med track. He has three years of eligibility remaining.
Wimberly was the #17 ranked recruit coming out of high school. He stays in state as he is originally from Prosper, Texas. He entered the portal just after the 2025 NCAA Championships alongside All-American Baylor Nelson. Nelson has not announced his intentions for the upcoming season yet.
Wimberly swam at NCAAs as a relay-only swimmer splitting a 42.36 to help the team to a 14th place finish in the 400 free. At SECs, Wimberly swam personal best times in two of his three individual events. His highest finished was 13th as he swam a 1:32.86 200 free. He also finished 23rd in the 200 fly in a 1:44.07 and a 1:44.16 season best in prelims of the 200 IM for 16th. He also time trialed the 100 free posting a 43.40, a personal best.
Wimberly’s Time Progression
| Before Texas A&M | Freshman | |
| 200 free | 1:34.00 | 1:32.86 |
| 200 fly | 1:45.11 | 1:44.07 |
| 200 IM | 1:44.08 | 1:44.16 |
| 100 free | 43.44 | 43.4 |
Wimberly arrives at Texas this fall to a team that made many roster cuts this past season. The team had double digit numbers in the transfer portal including eight athletes on day 1. Among those to transfer out of the program include Jeremy Kelly who has a similar lineup to Wimberly but has best times of 1:34.79 in the 200 free and 43.43 in the 100 free. Kelly announced he will transfer to Notre Dame.
Based on his best times, Wimberly would have been #6 on the team this past season in the 200 free while his 100 free would have been 9th.
The Texas men captured the 2025 NCAA Championship and were led by Hubert Kos who followed 1st year head coach Bob Bowman after Bowman led the Arizona State men to an NCAA Championship in 2024. Wimberly has the potential to fill some relay spots as three of the four relay legs at NCAAs in the 800 free will have graduated by this fall. Chris Guiliano and Luke Hobson just finished their senior seasons while Coby Carrozza just finished his 5th year.
Where does the athlete’s education fit into all of this new landscape? As a parent, I am acutely aware that there is no NBA-like career waiting at the end of this rainbow. There will be life after swimming. These kids have spent their lives committing to the sport, and understandably they want to compete at the highest level. But how does it serve these kids well to transfer from school to school? Do you just hope you can get a degree from whatever school you happen to land at at the end of your eligibility? I am every bit (if not more) interested in how my swimmer does academically than how the team does at NCAA’s. Maybe I am in… Read more »
As a swimmer mom I agree with all you said here. My son was at NCAA’s and is still not caught up from missing a week of school. And I don’t get how a rising senior could transfer? I thought most schools require a certain number of credit hours specifically taken through that school in order to issue a degree.
You are dead on. I think we are kidding ourselves right now – the ‘student athlete’ is gone based on this new ruling (pending), and may have never been a reality for football and basketball for the last 10-20 years …
If you look at most major male swim programs, the swimmers are communication majors or other ‘lighter’ targeted degrees. So transferring as a junior to me means they are either not close to graduating or it is a general degree that can transfer more units; or the BA/BS means little to them. Also – how many have graduated even after their swim career is over? Carson Foster went pro two years ago in his senior year at Texas –… Read more »
I agree. It seems like more of the women are getting the “harder” degrees. Some of these men may wind up at D3 schools where very few of the “lighter” majors exist. It’ll be eye opening but they’ll also realize that D3 athletes are serious athletes as well as serious academically minded students.
He just finished his freshman year, so he has a lot of school left. He might be getting a full ride if that has kicked in at Texas yet. He’s transferring from one excellent school to another that is generally rated even better overall, although A&M would probably have some programs rated higher than at Texas. Both have highly ranked colleges in their universities, especially in areas like engineering. There might also be some NIL money, although I’m not certain that is the case. I know several alumni of Texas swimming who have very successful careers. I could be wrong, but I think one of their big swimmers from a decade ago got a degree in something like nuclear or… Read more »
We have raised our children to be leaders but also servants in society. We have taught them to know and trust God. Jacob is a pre-med student. While he is a swimmer, his ambitions in life aren’t defined by the pool. I know this was a difficult decision for him but one that he felt prioritized swimming and career. Hope this helps coming from a parent.
Could we see the sport degrade to the point where the big schools like Texas and Cal don’t even recruit freshmen? Instead, they’d just let all the smaller schools do the recruiting, and throw money at the swimmers who pan out to transfer in as sophomores
That’s called “basketball” and “football” today….
No, because there are always freshmen who are so good that they’re worth recruiting. Maximus Williamson is the top seed in the 200 free heading into next season and he hasn’t swum a collegiate meet yet.
What I’m curious about is how long the NIL money will last. Is it a fun game for now, where folks know that it doesn’t take that much to buy a title? Does the shine wear off and the money stops flowing?
I don’t know if it’s sustainable at current levels in swimming. If it is, though, then we’ve proven that there is a commercial endgame for the sport and the decision makers can stop running around with fingers in their ears like there… Read more »
The NIL bucket will likely switch to boosters funding general athletic scholarships. Some schools will have their rosters with everyone on a full ride so they need money to pay for those. Not everywhere but some high level programs are seeing that already. Essentially use my money to field the best team we can buy rather than paying one or two athletes.
I suppose there will always be swimmers worth recruiting, especially with swimflation being the way it is now. To use the men’s class of 2025 as an example: excluding Williamson and Heilman, only 2 other swimmers (Campbell McKean and Luke Ellis) have scoring times. If we’re gonna get to the point where that’s the standard to swim at Cal or Texas as a freshman, they’ll each bring in a swimmer or 2 at most. A steep decline from 5-10 recruit classes that we’ve seen up to this point.
In theory that would actually create more parity in the sport, since that leaves plenty of excellent recruits for other schools to grab… until someone comes calling with stacks of money… Read more »
The Texas swimmers feel like the Forrest Gump of the NCAA’s – with a million dollar wound and the government keeping that money, as other than Bob, no one is backing up the truck for all this money you talk about – as it is not there … Not with swimming anyway.
Would be great to read an article about NIL money in swimming. In football there is transparency where we all know what the kids are getting – why not swimming. Would drive interest and dollars to the kids.
Love to see that. Especially at whet level an swimmer starts attracting NIL money.
Because I’m completely in the dark and don’t know how to advise our swimmer at this point.
The only issue is that NIL money is not publicly reported for any sport. Everything you read is anecdotal, and many parties involved may be incentivized to overstate things. I see it all the time with football and basketball, where large numbers are mentioned, but people in the know shoot them down (without clarifying specifics). It’s just a very mysterious subject currently.
That has been the University of Iowa’s strategy in college wrestling. They spent over a million dollars on three All-American last year. Only one of the three was an AA in 2025. It didn’t work out for Iowa.
Where did my other comment go? I worked so hard on the Notre Dame jokes lol.
-Isaac Cat lover
I heard wimbo hates puppies
Baylor Nelson is now following Texas Swim&Dive on Instagram. Hopefully the announcement is coming soon!
That would be fishy.
Wimberley is a great swimmer with a great upside. So I am cheering on his success. He could really flourish under Bob.
At some point you do wonder if the decisions made today by these coaches will impact the future. What swimmer will want to take a chance in being in the bottom 3rd of the roster with the risk of losing his spot the next year? This might make sense to a 1 and done swimmer like Guiliano or Nelson, but the risk of having to move again the next year should give a swimmer pause when joining a team that could be seen as cut throat. These aren’t football players looking to improve draft status, they are future… Read more »
Texas is a more prestigious school than A&M, so he probably feels that he’s upgrading both sides of the equation at the same time
My take isn’t on Wimberley specifically, it is on the coaches setting their reputations through this process. If Wimberley does great at UT there will be no issues for him. But what happens if he improves but some new shiny prospect comes along that would score more at NCs. If a coach has a reputation for cutting to chase the new shiny object, that starts to be a risky play for the swimmer. Treating the swimmers like pawns for the coaches to achieve championships for themselves will at some point come back to bite them. It is easier to do that in basketball and football where the sport is the future job opportunity. Both sides in those sports can make… Read more »
It’s ranked higher, but the gap is nowhere near what it used to be. According to US News & World: UT is #30, and TAMU is #51 (ahead of Penn St, UConn, Indiana, etc….)
Pre-med swimmer betting on himself. Bowman is obviously down with it. Will be fun to watch.
Blaire effect
You commented that exact same line two times on the article about Jacob entering the portal. We get it, you don’t like Blaire. Unless you’re a member of the team I’m sure you have no idea what actually is going on, and if you are a member of the team it’s quite embarrassing trashing your own head coach publicly this often.