1.	Oklahoma	197.850
2.	Utah	197.300
3.	Missouri	197.150
4.	Alabama	197.125
5.	LSU	196.975
6.	Cal	196.850
6.	Denver	196.850
6.	Minnesota	196.850
9.	Kentucky	196.775
9.	Ohio State	196.775
11.	Auburn	196.600
12.	UCLA	196.550
13.	Oregon State	196.525
14.	Michigan State	196.300
15.	Georgia	196.200
16.	Nebraska	196.125
17.	Southern Utah	196.025
18.	Illinois State	195.950
19.	BYU	195.900
20.	Michigan	195.875
21.	Illinois	195.825
21.	Iowa State	195.825
23.	Washington	195.000
24.	San Jose State	194.950
25.	Ball State	194.925

What’s Going On

In a surprise to zero people, Oklahoma has opened the season with a significant ranking lead, sitting more than a fall above #2 Utah. It’s the biggest first-week lead we’ve seen since 2020—and very reminiscent of how Oklahoma started that 2020 season compared to everyone else at the season-opening mega-meet.

Keep That Score

We don’t actually have a lot of keeper scores in the picture here because it’s the first week and even teams that started comfortably and rank well like Utah and Alabama won’t actually want to keep lower 197s for their NQSs. But a few teams really wouldn’t mind having these numbers around.

#3 Missouri – This 197.150 is the highest first-meet score in Missouri team history and would have counted as one of the six scores for NQS during the 2023 season, a year in which Missouri didn’t break the 197 barrier for the first time until February 19th. So this is earlier.

#6 Minnesota — More important than the 196.850 team total was this opening 49.350 BB score on what was Minnesota’s major struggle event last season. This would have ranked as Minnesota’s 2nd-best beam score for all of 2023.

#18 Illinois State — A 195.950 is definitely a keeper as Illinois State casually opened the season with the 4th-highest score in team history, picking up right where they left off after a setting a school record in the final meet of 2023 at the MIC Championship. Illinois State hasn’t made regionals in 22 years, but if this is the starting point, regionals could be in the picture for 2024.

#21 Iowa State – The Ashley Miles Era started on a successful note for a team that finished 44th last season and is trying to recapture past glory. This 195.825 would have been the third-highest score for Iowa State all of last season and is the highest first-meet score since KJ was in charge.

Maybe?

#9 Ohio State – For the second straight season, Ohio State has started off with a 196.775, a program record for the first meet. Which is good. But also, has Ohio State (and our expectations for Ohio State) progressed to a level where a non-197 isn’t noteworthy anymore?

#11 Auburn – A 196.600 wouldn’t have been a keeper score last season for Auburn, but with different expectations for this team in a post-Suni/Derrian world, a 196.6 road number seems a reasonable start.

Drop That Score

#20 Michigan – A 195.875 is a…non-ideal opening to the season as Michigan ended up among the many teams that went on a beam journey this weekend in Vegas. More surprising was the sub-49 total on vault, which we would not expect for a hit rotation from a lineup that still has five Yurchenko 1.5s this season.

#14 Michigan State – It’s a testament to the progress Michigan State has made that a 196.300 is now an obvious drop score—as recently as 2019 that would have stood as a season high—but Michigan State has scored lower than this only twice since the start of the 2022 season. It’s a drop.

#12 UCLA – A counting fall on beam sent UCLA to a 196.550 opener, the lowest score of the Janelle McDonald era and only the second time UCLA has been under 197 since she took over. The team will expect to rise from here.

#6 Cal – An uncharacteristically wibbly beam rotation dropped Cal under 197 to start the season with a 196.850. It’s a respectable number, but Cal has moved well past the era of entertaining the idea of counting a 196, or counting a meet with the equivalent of a fall rotation.

#5 LSU – A 196.975 is actually LSU’s highest opening-meet score since 2018, but a sub-197 at home with two beam falls (and the momentary flirting with the possibility of losing to Ohio State) will not suffice for a team that has national title aspirations this year.