When you’re facing a road opponent who boasts 19 top-four NCAA finishes and features a recent two-time Olympic silver medalist, it doesn’t hurt to know that the national poll currently favors your team to win.

When the No. 9 ISU women’s gymnasts take the floor against No. 16 Alabama on Friday in Tuscaloosa, national rankings will be the thing farthest from their minds.

“The rankings don’t really mean much at this point in the season and will change numerous times in the next five weeks,” head coach K.J. Kindler said.

Kindler said the Cyclones will focus on the confidence built during the team’s season-opening win against Missouri. This allows them to walk into the competition knowing they have the ability to cleanly hit all of their routines.

What Iowa State experienced in its first meet contrasts that of the Crimson Tide, who started off their season last week with a disappointing showing, spurred by three falls from the bars and one on vault.

“We couldn’t have had a much worse start than we did,” Alabama head coach Sarah Patterson said.

The Tide are one of the nation’s premier gymnastics programs, boasting four NCAA national team championships and 17 individual NCAA event champions.

Their most recent title came in 2002, a victory that three of Alabama’s current seniors helped clinch. Those seniors finished second and third at the championships in the past two seasons, respectively.

Friday’s competition will mark the highly anticipated collegiate debut of Alabama freshman Terin Humphrey on the uneven bars, the event on which she won Olympic silver in Athens.

According to a release by the Alabama athletic department, Humphrey will only see action in the uneven bars, because of her time away from training while performing with the silver-winning U.S. gymnastics team in the T.J. Maxx Tour of Champions this fall.

Regardless, the Tide will flaunt an experienced lineup of champions ready to face the Cyclones. Alabama will be led by junior all-arounder Ashley Miles, who captured two NCAA event titles last season in vault and floor, a repeat of her 2003 vault title.

ISU sophomore Janet Anson, who finished sixth behind Miles in last year’s NCAA vault finals, said her team isn’t intimidated by Alabama’s gymnastic credentials.

“Our skills and theirs are the same,” Anson said. “We can equal up to them; it’s just a matter of who hits and who is clean.”

The competition starts at 7:30 p.m. in Alabama’s Coleman Coliseum, where last year’s nation-best average attendance reached 10,274 fans per meet.

The meet marks the first time since 2002 that the Tide have faced a higher-ranked non-conference opponent at home.