Auburn gymnastics coach Jeff Thompson offered an apology in advance Thursday to the big crowd he expects at tonight’s meet against No. 4 Florida.

“We’re sorry that the level (of competition) has slipped off a little bit,” Thompson said. “We’re going to out and try to put on a good show regardless.”

Thompson was being facetious, of course. The No. 16 Tigers (2-4, 2-3 SEC) have wrapped up their final season inside Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum with some of the nation’s best teams, having already hosted No. 2 Alabama, No. 3 Oklahoma and No. 8 Georgia.

Tonight’s meet, which is set to begin at 7 p.m. and will serve as the Tigers’ penultimate meet in the 40-year-old arena, will be Auburn’s third televised meet (SportSouth, tape delay) if that’s any indication of how stacked the Tigers’ home schedule has been.

“They’re awesome. They’re one of the best teams in the country,” Thompson said. “I’m expecting a big crowd and for us to be really competitive.”

The only thing that stopped Auburn last week from building on two consecutive impressive performances was an opening in the schedule. The spot was previously filled by the back end of a home-and-home with Alabama, but Thompson ended that deal before the season, giving the Tigers an extra week of preparation for Florida.

It turned out that the rare, midseason bye came at the perfect time. Many members of the team have succumbed to the stomach flu, Thompson said, and are just now getting over the illness.

“It came at a great time,” Thompson said. “It would have been an ugly meet in more ways than one.”

The Tigers didn’t go completely meet-less, though. Instead of an ordinary practice last Friday, the Tigers held an intra-squad meet at the McWhorter Center and treated it like the SEC Championships. Members of each class even drew numbers out of gift-wrapped boxes to see at which event they’d start, adding some authenticity to the simulation.

There was just only so much that could be replicated, Thompson said.

“It was against ourselves, but we lost,” Thompson said with a smile. “We had a couple falls on beam, and floor was rough. Even though you’re trying to convince them it’s a real meet, it’s not a real meet, it’s not the same pressure.”

The pressure will certainly be high tonight, especially with Florida’s stacked lineup of gymnasts, many of whom Thompson tried to recruit to Auburn. Recognition can go a long way in gymnastics, too, Thompson said, because “the judges sometimes judge you on how they expect you to do instead of how you actually do.”

“It’s just human nature,” Thompson said. “If you put Florida’s lineup out there this week, I can tell you who every kid is. If you put our lineup out there and ask the Florida coaches to pick one, I bet they can’t name one of our kids.

“We have a great team but we don’t have the same number at the elite level.”

The Tigers, though, will have two of their more elite freshmen back in the mix tonight.

Toi Garcia will participate in the floor exercise for the first time in more than a month and Petrina Yokay will go off the vault for the first time in her Auburn career.

Both gymnasts, Thompson said, are capable of scoring 9.9s in their events.

“We’re having a great season so far even though our record doesn’t show it,” Thompson said. “We’re going out there and hitting what we’re doing every time out there. You can’t ask for much more.”

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