WEEK 4 RANKINGS
	1.	Oklahoma	197.781
Sooners retain #1 ranking, average drops one tenth after 197.425 Nichols wins AA again (theme?) with 39.725 Nichols also wins every event Chayse Capps falls on BB, dogs and cats live together
	2.	LSU	197.588
Tigers retain #2 ranking, with second consecutive 197.475 Edney last-minute replacement in AA, casual 39.625 Hambrick falls on VT and botches UB, world over
	3.	Florida	197.431
Florida records season-high 197.700 at home against Auburn Baker gets second career 10.000 on FX, returns on three events 9.950s from Hundley (UB), McMurtry (VT), Boren (FX) Chant still out
	4.	Utah	197.075
Another season-ending injury (Tessen) sours 197.150 @ Washington Skinner wins AA, leads team with 9.925 on BB, FX Muhaw adds VT, Reinstadtler adds UB to fill in lineups
	5.	UCLA	196.617
Bruins jump three spots after season-high 197.325 Kyla Ross 10.000 on UB leads the team, w/ Lee 9.950 on UB Kocian wins AA with 39.525
	6.	Alabama	196.440
Tide falls to 6th after weekend of poor meets B-team counts FX fall, multiple 9.7s for 195.325 in loss to Arkansas Aish-team has a three-fall UB disaster v. Auburn for 195.850 Sims (9.975) and Winston (9.950) FX save score in second meet
	7.	Michigan	196.381
Season-high 197.225 jumps Michigan three spots Karas records career-high 9.975 for stuck Y1.5 A batch of 9.925s (Artz, Zaziski on UB, Chiarelli on BB) follow Artz wins AA with 39.500
	8.	Denver	196.250
Denver drops a spot with 195.900 after counting BB fall Ross 9.925 on BB is team’s top score Competing only five on VT/FX begins to show, counting 9.6s on VT
	9.	Georgia	196.1115
Georgia hits all the events again (!) for season-high 197.075 Snead (back precaution), Vega (sick) did not compete Rachel Dickson arrived for 39.525 AA score
	10.	Kentucky	196.035
A back-to-earth weekend of 195s sees Kentucky fall to 10th A-team struggles with landings, particularly VT, against LSU for 195.750 B-team counts errors on UB, FX against Ball State for 195.300 Korth still goes 39.300, 39.400 in AA
	11.	Missouri	195.975
Missouri stays put and maintains average with 196.075 Harris leads team on FX (9.900) and VT (9.875) Missing Porter shows in 9.7-ful UB lineup
	11.	Southern Utah	195.975
BB trouble sees Southern Utah fall to 11th with 195.800 Ramirez wins AA with 39.425, leads team on three events with 9.875s Yee wins UB with 9.850
	11.	Boise State	195.975
Season-high 196.400 is led by characteristic huge UB score Collantes wins AA with 39.200, 9.900 on FX 9.925s on UB (Mejia, Remme) and BB (Remme) are team highs Counting a fall on floor takes away near-197
	14.	Oregon State	195.925
Second-consecutive hit meet (196.700) sees OSU jump again McMillan wins FX with 9.950 Aufiero and McMillan also record 9.900 on UB
	15.	Cal	195.800
Cal stays steady with serviceable 196.025 No falls, but Williams FX and Gallarzo BB only scores over 9.850
	16.	George Washington	195.731
GW jumps two spots after season-high 196.150 BB is highlight as usual, with 9.875s from CDA, Winstanley, Pfeiler
	17.	Auburn	195.645
Auburn posts season high, followed by season low in a wash weekend 196.400 @ Florida features 9.900 from Slappey (FX), Engler (BB) 194.675 v. Alabama features three-fall beam implosion for 47.600 Milliet injured in Friday warmups
	18.	Washington	195.600
No counting falls for season-high 196.300 9.900s from Goings (BB), Burleson (BB), and Hoffa (FX) lead Team rises to #7 BB ranking
	19.	Ohio State	195.538
OSU uses Minnesota score-a-thon to jump one spot 49.325 on VT leads team to 196 after 9.900 from Mattern Hofland scores 9.900 on UB, Mattern 9.875 on FX
	20.	Nebraska	195.517
Catastrophic UB, BB, FX rotations see Huskers plummet 8 spots Five falls lead to 194.800 total Lambert limited to VT, Breen still to UB, BB, and Williams still to BB Houchin is top AA performance with 39.300
	21.	Illinois	195.256
Illinois stays put with occasionally strictly scored 195.625 Leduc’s 9.875 on FX leads the team, wins AA with 39.275
	22.	Iowa	195.245
Iowa’s remarkable four-week run at #22 continues with 195.975 Highlight was string of 9.925s on UB (Metcalf, Sullivan, Zurawski)
	23.	Minnesota	195.075
Minnesota returns to top 25 with huge home 196.800 9.9s for everybody, particularly Abernathy (VT, FX) and Holst (UB, FX) Holst ties for AA victory with 39.375
	24.	Arkansas	195.038
Arkansas records another victory over Alabama with 195.825 Garner returns to BB, still show just five on UB BB highlighted by four 9.850s from Burton, Garner, Nelson, Yamzon
	25.	West Virginia	195.031
Season-high 196.300 keeps WVU in the top 25 Muhammad sticks Yfull for 9.900 in meet’s highlight routine Counting major beam error takes away giant, preposterous score

Full rankings at RTN.

Oklahoma and LSU both showed weird minor vulnerabilities this weekend with mistakes from Capps and Hambrick. That’s going to need to not continue at risk of jeopardizing our entire worldview. Florida’s season-high 197.700 has seen the Gators jump into sight of the top two, creating more significant separation between the big leading three and 4th-place Utah.

Another week, another discussion of how Utah will possibly go on in the wake of a major injury, this time a torn Achilles for Kim Tessen. RIP, my fantasy team. Vault is where Utah will feel these injuries the most. Rowe and Muhaw have come in (and you’d hope to have Lewis back as well), and while they can perform perfectly acceptable vaults, they’re going to get some 9.800s. It doesn’t hurt so much now, but it will when the meets get serious. Bars is actually OK right now with Lee and Reinstadtler coming in, but that lineup is stretched as far as it can stretch. No one else on the team has ever competed a bars routine. In the most recent meet, floor looked pretty comfortable in those early positions, some oddly inconsistent scoring notwithstanding, though the group being trotted out right now is not “big floor.” (Apart from Skinner, obviously.) It’s nice-double-pike floor.

UCLA put a meet together (progress!) to jump up to #5, reaffirming that this team has the potential to be really, really, really good. This was a solid performance, their best so far, but not an amazing showing. Vault and floor still have a long way to go, but it tells us something that their bars and beam are good enough for a 197.3 nonetheless.

Michigan and Georgia joined UCLA as the team’s starting to put complete meets together and rise toward more expected rankings with these talent-befitting 197s, but these schools were the rarity this week. We saw a lot of averages drop (even from Oklahoma and LSU) and several top teams throw out quite forgettable performances. Or actually, memorable but not in a good way.

That means you, Alabama. It was always going to be a weird weekend for Alabama with the two meets and the inevitable lineup surrealism, but it ended up being a missed opportunity featuring two must-drop scores. The situation is by no means dire—Alabama already has several strong scores and is a very good team—but it does perhaps indicate that while Alabama has a ton of routines, the team may not have quite the actual depth it seemed in the preseason. It only counts as depth if you’d be OK putting up that routine at regionals, and probably half of the sets we saw on Friday would not be OK to put up in an important meet like that.

The absence of Guerra and the continued recovery of Brannan mean that Alabama may not have the same luxury of playing around with lineups and slotting 84 different people into rotations and still getting a good score as it did last year.

Despite the weak score, Sunday’s meet was less of a problem because the low score was the result of falls, not of “9.725 and that’s what you’re always going to get for this routine.” These falls are unlikely to be a continuing proposition, and the lineups put out on Sunday are Super-Six level when they hit.

Fortunately for Alabama, it seemed they successfully freed themselves of this illness and coughed it all over Auburn at the end of Sunday’s meet, leading to an Auburn beam implosion and another low score in a week in which Milliet also went out injured. Auburn is still yet to reach 196.5 in any meet so far this year with seven remaining before regionals.

Kentucky also resorted to some lineup twisting and gymnast resting to survive its two-meet weekend, which also didn’t go exactly to plan with some 195s and poor landings that we didn’t see in the first few meets of the year. Maybe don’t have two-meet weekends? Is that the lesson here? All of the SEC teams that had Friday-Sunday meets struggled, and these teams all have to go again this coming Friday. Not everyone is Brittany Rogers and can just do that for fun.

Nebraska has no such two-meet excuse for the 194.800 at Michigan because it was their only meet of the weekend. It was just rough from start to finish, except for Houchin who really shone as the team’s clear future leader. (Current leader?)

Non-famous stars of the week
Gymnasts from schools outside the top 25 who scored over 9.900

Kendall Valentin, Eastern Michigan, Bars – 9.925
For the second week in a row. Who’s going to snatch her as a transfer?

Rachel Stypinski, Kent State, Beam – 9.925
Ranks #5 nationally on beam.

Nicole Medvitz, Penn State, Beam – 9.925
Actually the only good thing going for Penn State right now.

Haylee Young, Iowa State, Beam – 9.925
Career-high on beam after hitting 9.900 each of last two years

Skyler Sheppard, Arizona, Beam – 9.925
Arizona’s not in the top 25? More Sheppard please

Majesta Valentine, West Chester, Floor – 9.925
Majesta indeed