1. Michigan – 197.963

Michigan has competed at only two road meets thus far so will not have an official NQS until after the Big Five meet this Friday. Sunday’s 197.600 was Michigan’s lowest home score of the season so far and was dropped so doesn’t influence the NQS.

2. Florida – 197.638

Like Michigan, Florida will not have an NQS until after Friday’s meet because of the team’s home-heavy early schedule and road-heavy late schedule. Florida has the clear edge on Michigan in home scores, but with just one usable road score thus far compared to Michigan’s two road 198s, Florida will have to start getting the away results to keep up.

3. Oklahoma – 197.604

Oklahoma’s current setup is quite similar to Florida’s, with two home 198s and only one usable road score so far, though Oklahoma lost some ground this week when Florida got a 198 and Oklahoma had a beam dud. One difference in Oklahoma’s favor is that Oklahoma has a busier remaining schedule with 5 road-score opportunities still to come in addition to the home finale against Michigan.

4. Utah – 197.496

Unlike the top 3, Utah has an NQS at this point, using that consistent slate of 197s to come up with an already competitive 197.440. The problem for Utah will be that every team ranked above them already has two 198s (one to drop and one to count) while Utah has none, so Utah’s potential to improve upon a #4 ranking will be largely handcuffed until those 198s come.

5. LSU – 197.400

LSU’s meet cancellations from earlier in the season mean the team has been slightly behind with the number of scores but will officially be caught up following this weekend’s two-meet adventure, with one road meet and one home meet to fill out the picture. With only two scores of LSU level so far, there is a bit more pressure to make sure the remaining meets are mostly good ones, but LSU does have six left.

6. Auburn – 197.250

Auburn’s current NQS is exceptionally healthy and requires the removal of just that one low road score in order to be a perfectly competitive end-of-season total, one that would compare reasonably with what we’re seeing from #4 Utah. With six meets left and only one absolutely necessary score required, Auburn should have the luxury to manage athletes through March without the pressure to put the ideal lineup out every single time.

7. Alabama – 197.154

Alabama will be able to remove that 195 from the road scores easily, but we are currently seeing a large discrepancy between Alabama’s home scores and road scores, and it’s going to be difficult to keep up with Auburn—let alone the top 5—on just the strength of home scores. Alabama will look for a big number at LSU this Friday.

8. Minnesota – 197.095

Minnesota’s 196.225 loss to Maryland and Pittsburgh on Monday was not the highlight of the season and puts a little more strain on the three remaining road meets if Minnesota is to remain in the top 8 as we go. A road peak at 197.125 like Minnesota and Alabama have is good for now, but will it stay good?

9. Cal – 196.960

Currently, the top 7ish have established a fairly sizable gap between themselves and everyone else, so teams in the challenging pack like Cal will be looking to—surprise!—use a heavy March away schedule to improve those pesky road scores. Note that Cal will drop off the rankings next Monday when NQS kicks in, without enough road scores to get an NQS until the following week.

10. Kentucky – 196.880

See above. Everything about Cal also applies to Kentucky as the score-scapes and schedules are both very similar right now.

11. Missouri – 196.850

Missouri is currently in an interesting position because these are already extremely strong scores for Missouri historically (the final NQS last season was 196.444, so the team would basically just have to cough one more time to beat that this season). It’s a win. But if Missouri is entertaining top-10 hopes, that would mean using all five remaining meets to drop these 196s.

12. Denver – 196.800

Unsurprisingly, Denver has suffered a bit of a score dip following the injury to Brown, though did get back up to 196.8 last Sunday, and did log two 197s in the Before Times. That means this is not at all terrible score picture, if still kind of vulnerable to getting dropped out of the all-important top 16 should the 196s continue. With only two road meets left, Denver will be eager to scoop up that good, good Metroplex goodness this Saturday.

13. Oregon State – 196.755

Oregon State did itself a solid on Sunday with another 197, which sets the team up favorably to challenge the likes of #11 Missouri and #12 Denver, while also providing a little buffer in the race to the evening session at Pac-12s (a race that is going to get junky with UCLA still presumably going to finish with high scores but Arizona State with a lot more to give and Stanford getting almost 197s now). The question for Oregon State is that this team is still largely road-untested with just one away meet so far that went medium, part of a season schedule that also means Oregon State won’t actually rejoin the rankings until March 6th.

14. Michigan State – 196.611

This is already obviously better than anyone possibly could have imagined, so, you know…good one? Drop that 195, then chill on the couch. Maintaining top 16 is going to be tough to do with mid-196s hanging around, so those probably do also need to go if MSU is to fend off some of the name brands still ranked lower.

15. UCLA – 196.410

The red flag for UCLA right now is that bold 196.850 at the top. Since there are just two road meets left on the Bruins’ schedule—Pac-12s and this Sunday’s meet at Arizona State—that 196.850 cannot be dropped and will inhibit how high the team can go because…it’s not a 197. There is perhaps no more urgent performance this coming weekend than UCLA’s at ASU because the score pretty much has to count. If it’s a missed meet, it becomes very tough to see a path for UCLA to the top 10 or a good postseason seeding.

16. Arkansas – 196.370

Despite a deeply erratic start to the season—with meets that are just as likely to be 197s as they are multi-fall affairs—Arkansas is also sitting on two usable scores with six meets remaining. So there’s time. Much like Oregon State, Arkansas is still an untested road team and will be eager to compare favorably to Missouri in this weekend’s visit to have a chance at upsetting the current conference hierarchy.

17. Iowa – 196.285

By average, Iowa currently sits outside the top 16 places (those who will be seeded at regionals) and will need to go higher than these 196.4s to change that. Iowa has not scored 49 on bars at an away meet so far this year, which is the main thing that will have to change during this month-long road meet streak.

18. Stanford – 196.230

Last year at this time Stanford had one score on the slate and it was 133. So this is better. 

19. BYU – 196.221

20. Arizona State – 196.160

21. Utah State – 196.142

Watch out for Utah State to make a push once NQS turns on and that 194 goes away. 

22. Ohio State – 195.950

23. Southern Utah – 195.871

Road score alert. SUU does still have four road meets on the schedule, and the juiciest looking score opportunity in the bunch is Friday’s visit to BYU.

24. Boise State – 195.783

Meet cancellations and a late start mean Boise State has barely begun. But with six meets currently left on the schedule and only one usable score by this season’s standards, the time is now. This week’s two-meet weekend is a big one.

25. Western Michigan – 195.720

Western Michigan started so well, but the scores haven’t come lately, and the big lingering question is whether low 196s will be enough to make regionals. They always have been before, but the scores are different this year. 

26. Illinois – 195.658

27. Georgia – 195.600

Teams like Georgia are the ones NQS is designed to protect, teams that started poorly and have low averages but are going to end up getting enough scores to be fine. But in terms of definitely, absolutely safe scores, Georgia still has only one of them and six meets remaining, so can’t afford much dawdling.  

28. North Carolina – 195.554

Road score alert.

29. Kent State – 195.505

30. NC State – 195.450

31. Towson – 195.425

32. West Virginia – 195.395

33. San Jose State – 195.385

Watch out for SJSU in the coming weeks. There’s a misleading 192 in there.

34. Arizona – 195.370

35. Penn State – 195.358

36. Maryland – 195.325

37. Nebraska – 195.225

38. Iowa State – 195.200

39. Washington – 195.050

Washington has just three road meets left, including Saturday at Metroplex, where a regionals-competitive 196 is starting to look like an absolute must. 

40. UC Davis – 194.963

41. Rutgers – 194.961

Since Rutgers has already been able to drop its first-meet 192, Rutgers’ NQS is much higher than a number of the teams that are ranked above on average.

42. Temple – 194.946

43. Pittsburgh – 194.933

44. George Washington – 194.908

45. Northern Illinois – 194.861

46. New Hampshire – 194.538

47. Central Michigan – 194.496

48. Ball State – 194.494

A not-enough-people meet over the weekend sunk Ball State’s average, but keep an eye out because that score is already dropped for NQS, which is a healthier number. 

49. Eastern Michigan – 194.396

50. Pennsylvania – 194.067