Week 6 Rankings & First NQS Update

While NQS won’t officially take effect in the rankings until next Monday, most teams have now completed enough meets to have a prospective NQS (explained), so let’s check in on how things look.

Teams are still ordered by their average here, but below that is their current six-score NQS slate.

Any scores in BOLD can no longer be dropped.

This 197.960 NQS currently ranks as the 11th best NQS in college gymnastics history, and it’s February 14, and Oklahoma has six whole meets remaining. Meaning: there’s every reason at this point to expect Oklahoma’s NQS record to fall again this year. That 197.6 looks ripe for dropping this weekend.

Florida has not yet competed in enough road meets to have an NQS, which will be rectified with Friday’s ESPN2 visit to LSU. Florida has four road meets left on the schedule, so there’s still plenty of time, but there is some work to do on the road scores since that 197.325 will also need to be dropped to stay up among the very top teams.

Like Florida, Michigan will be pretty comfortable with four of these scores as of now, but will want to drop the road 197.4 and 196.9 since it’s basically 197.9-or-bust for the top 4 teams at this point. With three road meets remaining, Michigan will look for at least two of those to be giant numbers.

Utah currently sits behind Michigan in NQS land, Michigan with two 198s to Utah’s one. While Utah doesn’t have any of those 196 stragglers, 197.2 is the basically the new 196 (which is the new zero). A 198 road would be very useful at this point in trying to match what Michigan is putting together. How the lineups handle the Grace McCallum injury (still waiting for severity confirmation on that) in Monday’s next meet will be telling. Getting Lucy Stanhope back from her heel injury becomes more important now, especially for vault.

There is a somewhat large gap emerging at this point between the top 4 and the rest, Club 198 and Club Not. Auburn has a pretty nice setup for staying in the top 8, though, having not scored anything out of the 197s all season and basically just looking for a gradual improvement on those lowest numbers.

UCLA is keeping it very close to Auburn right now, with better road scores but weaker home scores through the first half of the season. That’s usually the setup you’d prefer because home scores can be replaced at any time, giving UCLA more opportunities to move up than a team that’s waiting for road meets.

Cal is a little behind Auburn and UCLA right now, but with a secret weapon in the form of that 196.400 that can be dropped. That means Cal has more room to grow with a hit score than Auburn or UCLA would have (i.e. if all three scored 197.500 this weekend, Cal would move ahead of both of them). But Cal could eventually be handcuffed by not having that big 197.8 or two on the slate, so will also be looking for a truly gigantic score this weekend.

Now that LSU has started to find the scores, things are beginning to look pretty competitive with the Auburn/UCLA/Cal group. It may take a little longer to match them because LSU cannot drop that 196.7 this weekend, competing at home against Florida. Though that provides its own possibilities for a hearty, top-of-the-line number that LSU would also need to stay in the coveted top 8 (seeded to make nationals).

After a slow start, Alabama has chalked up some big numbers in the last two meets that could make Alabama the prime spoiler for the top 8 if maintained. Alabama will still need at least three high scores from the remaining five meets, if not four, so there’s not much room for a backslide left.

Denver still needs another road meet to get an NQS and will generally need to pump up those road numbers if getting into the top 8 is going to be a thing, since everyone in the 1-9 spots has at least a 197.5 road score. The good news for Denver is that four of the remaining five meets are on the road.

Kentucky is also among the teams with a little bit more urgency in the road score department because of those two early-season 196.5s, at least if a last-minute push toward the top 8 is going to be in the cards. But, those home 197s do provide more ranking security than the teams in the 13+ range have right now.

Oregon State basically can’t wait for NQS to start because NQS would have Oregon State ahead of both Alabama and Kentucky (and probably Denver) if it were in effect this week. It’s just a first-meet 195 that’s keeping Oregon State down in the average standings, but that has already been dropped for an NQS slate that’s basically just one more road score from being very solid.

We also have a pretty significant gap starting to emerge between the top 12 and the remaining teams, with Ohio State’s NQS a fair distance behind that of Kentucky. We’ve seen the record-setting home performances, and now Ohio State will be eager to replicate that at road meets. It nearly happened yesterday, but beam problems led to what was still a road high but also kind of a missed opportunity.

The other teams will need to watch out for Arkansas because there’s still a 195.5 score hanging around and counting. Another of those 197.4s, and Arkansas would be right up level with Kentucky’s NQS. Arkansas visits Kentucky on Friday, and Kentucky will be eager to show that they are not actually level. Arkansas’s 197.1 at Metroplex this weekend was a big deal because we hadn’t seen that at road meets yet.

Michigan State is in a very similar position to Arkansas at this point, with a straggling 195 from Saturday now on the slate that should be easily dropped in the future. Michigan State will be well-served by the NQS system this year because there have been several lower scores in the early season that don’t really reflect the team’s scoring potential and can soon be dropped.

While Michigan State should be well-served by NQS, Missouri’s season thus far is exactly the kind of season NQS is designed to punish. They’ve been consistently in the mid-196s, without any disastrous lows but without any huge highs to lean on either, and NQS is all about the highs. So while Missouri’s current 196.600 is better than Arkansas and Michigan State, those two teams still have low 195s to drop to allow them to zoom up, while Missouri does not. The 197s need to start coming soon if Missouri is to avoid being left behind.

Minnesota’s best performances so far this season have come at road meets, which will be important because with just one home meet remaining on the schedule, Minnesota needs to get some more big road numbers to have a shot at the top 16 (seeded at regionals), especially with several of the teams currently ranked below Minnesota by average, like Iowa and Georgia, having higher prospective NQSs.

Iowa is in a safe spot right now, and within sight of a spot in the top 16, but is probably going to need to break out for some program-recordy scores to get there in the end considering that all of the teams in the top 15 already have at least two 197s this season.

With a higher NQS than Minnesota and Iowa right now—and that home 197 along with a couple high 196 road scores—Georgia is probably establishing itself as the most compelling lurker at this point, the most likely threat to spoil the top 16.

Arizona State competes at home next Monday, but will go on the road the following weekend for a chance to get rid of that 195.775, which will provide a glowing opportunity to move up.

Southern Utah has a higher NQS than Arizona State right now, a 197 road from last weekend, and 6 meets remaining instead of the 5 that most teams have, so SUU has some real assets in its corner and will consider itself in the same general hunt as teams like Minnesota, Iowa, and Georgia.

Stanford has been consistently in the 196s all season, which is something we haven’t always been able to say about this team. Actually, ever. This is the first time in team history that Stanford has gone 196+ in all of its first seven meets. The season high of 196.725 is lower than that of any team ranked ahead of Stanford right now, so increasing the team’s peak scoring ability will be goal from here on out.

With a current NQS higher than Stanford’s and a score in the 195s that needs to be dropped, Illinois will still feel OK about the competitiveness of the scores thus far, even if we’re now getting to the portion of the rankings where there’s quite a lot of teams to pass between here and the top 16.

There’s much still to be determined for Maryland, without enough scores for NQS, with two other 195s hanging around, but also a whopping EIGHT meets left. Basically, we don’t know anything yet.

Washington is a little bit farther back from the top 16 but, with a couple 195s still to drop, is probably the last in the group of teams that still looks in contention for a seeded regionals spot, at least without something truly wild happening. I’d imagine everyone in the top 25 right now should feel pretty safe for the regionals top 36 unless they really start imploding (Washington had a weak beam yesterday and still got a score that’s not bad for top-36 purposes).

Penn State is a team with a Road Score Red Flag right now. Three road meets left on the schedule and no road 196s yet.

Boise State has one of the smallest schedules this year with only 10 total meets, so every meet is more urgent.

One more 196, and Ball State is going to start to look fairly safe. One of the safest of the not-safe teams so far given those 196s and that 194 that can go soon.

BYU is in a precarious position now but will look pretty safe once that 193 goes.

Pitt’s NQS is happier than some of the other teams in this ranking zone because of those couple good home scores, but the road scores need to arrive if regionals is going to be a thing this year.