The LSU Gymnasts have descended on the ranking table! After holding a strong foothold as the reigning champions against Iowa State, the Tigers finished second below Oklahoma in the Sprouts Collegiate Quad meet. But this hiccup is hardly worth losing sleep over. First, because, they trailed by just 0.300 points. Plus, one of their freshmen stole the show under the national spotlight—so much so that fans are calling out the NCAA gymnastics judges for what they’re claiming was a bad call.

The Tigers secured their preferred rotation order in the Quad meet, thanks to which, they started on vault and finished on the floor. In the former, they were led by freshman Kailin Chio who scored a 9.950 in the anchor spot. It was an early season high and a true feat to pin their hopes on for the LSU side, in the absence of seniors like KJ Johnson and Haleigh Bryant. But, the NCAA gymnastics judges awarding it only a 9.950 irked the fans, who believed that Chio’s flawless execution was worthy of a perfect 10. After all, with a stuck Yurchenko 1.5, she deserved it right?

But that’s just not how the NCAA gymnastics judges are looking at things this season. When Chio started her routine with a salute to the judges, her score was a perfect 10, which should have carried to the end. But the number decreases by 0.1 or 0.5, as the judges spot errors. In this case, the only fault that one could find was that perhaps Chio’s legs were a bit too far apart when she landed. Well, until last season, such minor wobbles were not too severely deducted. In fact, the gymnasts had to commit major noticeable flaws for them to see anything below a 9.9.

But clearly, things have changed now. And not just with Kailin Chio and the vault, fans even felt that the scoring on another apparatus was lower than usual, which raises suspicion. “But the judges robbed us on bar routines. Awful scoring on great routines,” commented one of them. Well, the drop in the number of perfect tens is quite evident this season. Last season, judges awarded a perfect 10 score 87 times. Whereas in 2023 this was 84. In fact, for the first time in four years, the opening week of the NCAA Gymnastics Championships hasn’t seen a single perfect score! Is this a shift towards more realistic scoring or are the judges being stricter than usual?

And it’s not that the gymnasts are oblivious to any of this. But its the LSU super seniors who are setting an example for the rest to follow. For instance, when Olivia Dunne was asked about the same, she opened up in the LSU Week 2 press conference, “Scores are always a tricky situation because they’re out of your control and you just got to go out there and try your best no matter what and just be present in the moment with your team cheering.” She has made her stance clear, but not a lot of fans necessarily agree.

Fans call out NCAA gymnastics judges over 2025 scoring system

Well, a few fans are being harsh towards the judges, while others are justifying the stand of the gymnastic veterans placed on the panel. One of them commented, “I literally am watching yelling out “I’m tired of the judges being haters!!!” If you closely watch today’s scores, Oklahoma scored 197.950 whereas LSU wrapped up with 197.650 on the board. Clearly, a bunch of good performances led to these. But not just Kailin, even Aleah Finnegan and Amari Drayton had to be satiated with their 9.975 and 9.950 scores.

It’s natural that to the viewers, they looked like perfect 10 performances as there were probably just minor errors in them. But to those who know the nitty-gritty of NCAA gymnastics, this doesn’t seem that shocking. For instance, Jade Carey’s Oregon coach Tanya Chaplin agreed, “Our performance, I think they did a great job. We have a new code this year, we have a new evaluation system for the officials.” And that, “the scoring was definitely probably tighter than what most people thought was going to.”  While that may be surprising when compared to the 2024 system, both Carey and Tanya confirmed that they prioritized performance over scores.

But the fans were inconsolable. One of them said, “I’m so annoyed. The bars judges should be fired.” Coming to the bars, it was the second-most highly criticized apparatus where people felt the scores were underwhelming. Three of the LSU gymnasts on this apparatus secured 9.9+ scores, which were all near-misses or could have been potential 10s. Two others scored 9.825 while the lowest for an LSU Tiger was still 9.725. While fans feel that all of these could have been perfect scores given the older system, they were in disbelief how the 9.9+ ones weren’t for now.

However, fans have started to believe, the judges are going to make the gymnasts sweat this year. “This was a 10 in my eyes!!!! Judges are gonna make us work for it this year but I know it’s never defeated us before, we should always remind ourselves, don’t focus on the score focus on the routine. The routine was perfect. 😍 honored to watch this over and over again.” 

Well, till last year, athletes like Trinity Thomas were awarded perfect 10s despite her shifting her foot slightly after the landing. But this year, there is a no mercy policy it seems! However, is this fair to the freshman who have entered the field this year and are hoping to make their names known? Well, the opinion is divided.

But some of the fans are in such severely disbelief that they feel, “I feel like they’re automatically starting 10.0 SV’s at 9.950 and the 9.950 starting at 9.90 to control how many 10.0’s they give out this year.” They also suggested that the deduction could possibly be for not holding the salute after the rotation, before turning to the judges. Could this be true? If yes, the filter for that perfect 10 has almost become impenetrable this year! What do you think? Let us know below!