Welcome to the ninth week in college gymnastics! We actually missed last night’s meets, which included a win for Boise State at home against MRGC rival Utah State, and another win for D3 La Crosse against WIAC rival Winona State.

Tonight is pretty laid back with only a handful of meets, while Sunday is a bizarrely big day for the sport instead. There are still a couple of SEC events, though, with #11 Kentucky hosting #28 Arkansas and #15 Missouri hosting #18 Auburn, which should be a FABULOUS meet, as these teams have kind of been on the same page all season.

I’m also hoping we get good news from Arkansas, which only posted a 185.275 last weekend after not putting up five routines on floor due to injury. Thankfully the score won’t factor into the team’s RQS, but it’s still a bummer to see a program take a fall that bad after doing such an incredible job to come back from early season drama.

Friday will also see #5 Utah host #33 Stanford. This is Utah’s senior night so depending on your fan status, get ready to get excited or outraged by scores because they’re gonna be big, especially for lone senior Baely Rowe. I’m okay with it. If every top ten team is gonna go over the top with scoring, Utah can too, no matter how biased you are against them (#SkinnerForOlympicBarsChamp).

#1 Oklahoma makes its appearance on Saturday in a meet at #11 Michigan, and we’ll also see #7 Denver hosting #25 Ohio State, but that’s pretty much it for the big teams, though we will get a cool in-state rivalry meet between #14 Iowa and #27 Iowa State. It’s always a good time when those two get together.

The best meet of the week comes Sunday with #2 LSU hosting #3 Florida. The teams are two tenths apart in the RQS, a tenth apart when you rank by averages, and they share the same season high of 197.975, so this is just about the most evenly-matched top ten meet of the season, but I don’t think the Tigers will have a problem wiping out the Gators. The Tigers look hungrier than ever for a national title that has eluded them for the past few years, and while Florida has some top talent and solid routines, if both teams hit LSU right now is clearly the stronger program. Their vault at home two weeks ago was one of the best vault rotations I’ve seen in collegiate history, and while the pieces don’t always come together exactly for this team, I’m waiting for the day they do because it’ll be SO GOOD.

Also on Sunday are a few conference meets with #4 UCLA hosting #19 California, #6 Alabama at #8 Georgia, and #9 Oregon State hosting #17 Washington, with these three meets and the one above the central focus meets on a super busy day that’ll keep us going from morning til night.

All times listed are ET, the first team listed is the host team, and we’ll update any links as they are updated on each program’s schedule. Once the meet is finished, we’ll replace the links with results. Enjoy!

Article by Lauren Hopkins