Sprints

The typical “premier event in track and field” looks to be the best race in the men’s sprints in Eugene, not just because the 100m field is incredibly fast, but because it’s also incredibly wide open.

The joint collegiate leaders are Favour Ashe of Auburn and T’Mars McCallum of Tennessee, both having run 9.94 this season. McCallum ran his fastest race of the year in April, and has since run 10.03 in the SEC final and 10.04 in the second round of the East regional. Ashe, meanwhile, looks to be peaking at just the right time. His 9.94 came in that second round in Lexington last week, where he finished almost a full-tenth of a second faster than anyone else in the field. He’s also shown solid consistency this season, breaking 10 seconds on two other occasions. Ashe finished runner-up on this track at the 2022 NCAA Championships while running for Tennessee.

Just behind these two sits SEC champion Godson Oghenebrume of LSU, with a season's best of 9.99. While the collegiate leaders do look to have a pretty significant advantage on Oghenebrume based solely on what the clock says, Oghenebrume did take down McCallum (3rd, 10.03) head-to-head at SECs in a race Ashe was a DNS in. In terms of times, he’s also ahead of where he was heading into nationals last year, where he ran 9.93 in the heats and 9.90 in finals to finish just a hair behind Courtney Lindsey.

While these three SEC stars have looked great all season and each have a strong claim to the title of favorite, the biggest story coming out of regionals was the University of Houston duo of Louie Hinchliffe and Shaun Maswanganyi. Hinchliffe, who has a wind-legal season’s best of 10.00, ran 9.84 with a +2.5m/s wind at his back in the second round of the West regionals last Friday. This was the 10th-fastest all-conditions time in collegiate history and it placed Hinchliffe 2nd on the British all-conditions list, just behind Zharnel Hughes’ 9.83 national record from last June. Maswanganyi finished 2nd to his teammate in 9.89, running the second-fastest all-conditions time of his career. If championship experience is something you value, Maswanganyi has it in spades. This will be his fourth consecutive NCAA Championships, finishing 2nd in 2021, 9th in 2022, and 3rd in 2023. He’s also made the finals in the 200m each of those years as well, with his best finish being a bronze in 2021. He also represented South Africa at the Tokyo Olympics and both of the last two World Championships. ALSO his coach is Carl Lewis. If there is a favorite to be picked, I think I’ll go with Maswanganyi to finally take home his first national title.

The standout event feels like a pretty easy pick on the women’s side, because what the Arkansas 400m team has done this outdoor season is so hard to wrap your head around. The quartet of Nickisha Pryce, Kaylyn Brown, Amber Anning, and Rosey Effiong have completely rewritten the record books over the last month-and-a-half. Alongside their new 4x400m collegiate record from regionals, Pryce (49.32), Brown (49.47) and Anning (49.51) became the third-, fourth-, and fifth- fastest women in collegiate history amidst their 1-2-3 finish at SECs. After another stunning showing at regionals, where Effiong finished ahead of Anning and dropped her PB to 50.11 in the process, these four have accounted for 14 of the 16 fastest times in the country this year. It seems almost pre-determined that they will make more history in Eugene, and former Razorback Britton Wilson’s collegiate record of 49.13 might have to sleep with one eye open.

If there is one woman who stands a chance at breaking up an Arkansas sweep, it’s Georgia sophomore Aaliyah Butler. Butler has the other two times inside that top 16 we had mentioned earlier, and her PB of 49.79 places her eighth on the all-time collegiate list. Unfortunately, that time was only good for 4th at the SEC Championships. If that stat alone isn’t a perfect example of how ridiculous the Arkansas women have been in 2024, I don’t know what else would be. Butler is coming off of an easy 50.30 clocking and a comfortable win in a far less competitive East regionals, and you can be sure she’ll be looking to break up a Razorback party on the podium this week.

Distance

Picking one event out of the women’s distance races was probably the hardest part of this whole exercise. Can Michaela Rose finally take down Athing Mu’s collegiate record in the 800m? Will Parker Valby become the first woman since Dominique Scott in 2016 to complete the 5000m-10,000m double? Is Courtney Wayment’s steeplechase record under threat from the duo of Doris Lemngole and Olivia Markezich? Each of these events and storylines have their own merits, but we’re going to take a deep dive into a deep and incredibly talented 1500m field.

The conversation starts with Harvard’s Maia Ramsden. The reigning NCAA champion in the mile and 1500m has run two of the four fastest times in collegiate history over the last two weeks. Dropping the 2.5 seconds she would need to reach Jenny Simpson’s (nee Barringer’s) collegiate record of 3:59.90 might be a big ask, but if anyone would be capable of that it would be Ramsden.

It’s also worth keeping an eye on Ramsden in the 5000m, after she dropped 11 seconds off her PB at East regionals to qualify for Eugene with the third-fastest time across both regionals.

Ramsden will by no means be alone, however, as eight other women have entered the top 25 performers in collegiate history this season. At the front of this pack are Providence's Kimberly May and Florida’s Flomena Asekol. May and Asekol had a pair of phenomenal battles to the line in the East regionals. May took the first round in 4:07.00 to 4:07.43, and Asekol took the second round in 4:07.10 to 4:07.51. The fastest time by each woman placed them 11th and 12th on the all-time list, respectively, and putting them in the same race as Ramsden this time could produce something truly special.

The crazy thing is that based on outdoor performances alone, none of these three are even ranked in the top 25 in the country. That’s how deep this event is right now. Freshmen Brian Musau of Oklahoma St. and Habtom Samuel of New Mexico currently sit first and second in the nation this year at 13:13.29 and 13:13.34, over three seconds faster than anyone else in the NCAA. Those times, both run at the Bryan Clay Invitational in early April, place Musau and Samuel sixth and seventh on the all-time collegiate list.

Parker Wolfe of UNC will be another runner to watch in this race. He enters the meet with the fourth-fastest season’s best at 13:19.38 and is the only man in the country this year to have broken 13:30 on two occasions. After finishing runner-up to Young in both the 3000m and the 5000m indoors, it’s safe to say Wolfe won’t be satisfied with another silver.

Jumps

The men’s long jump has all the ingredients necessary to make an amazing competition. A World silver medallist who entered the outdoor season as a heavy favorite to come away with the title? Yep, Wayne Pinnock of Arkansas. An upset just before the championship? You bet, USC’s Johnny Brackins handed Pinnock his first loss of the season at West regionals. A deep field? Absolutely, seven men in the competition have PBs over 8 meters.

Pinnock dominated the indoor season. In three meets his marks were 8.34m, 8.28m, and then 8.40m to win the national title, which moved him to fifth on the collegiate all-time list and would have won him the World Indoor title a week earlier by 18cm. His outdoor season got underway a bit later than some of his competitors, but his wind-aided 8.44m opener is the best all-conditions mark in the country and second-best in the world right now. His wind-legal season’s best of 8.09m from SECs was at the top of the collegiate list until his loss to Brackins in Fayetteville.

Brackins only finished 4th at NCAA Indoors, but he had become the U.S. national champion a few weeks before that, jumping out to a new PB of 8.23m. Outdoors, Brackins struggled to find some consistency early in the season, but brought it at just the right time. His third round jump of 8.15m last week was the farthest of his life outdoors and actually resulted in his first win outdoors in 2024.

Brackins’ teammate JC Stevenson caught the country’s attention in early April when he jumped 8.37m with +4.2m/s wind at his back and later backed that mark up with a wind-legal 8.05m. Ranked third in the NCAA, he could definitely be a medal contender and should improve upon an 11th-place finish indoors and a 10th-place finish at this meet last year.

Minnesota freshman Charles Godfred has been remarkably consistent all season after a truncated indoor campaign. Prior to a 7th-place finish at West regionals (where he still managed 7.80m), the only time Godfred had lost to a fellow collegian all year was the same meet Stevenson jumped 8.37m. On that day, Godfred managed a wind-aided 8.19m, but also had a wind-legal jump of 8.14m (because it was just an ancillary mark, it doesn’t get worked into the collegiate rankings). With five competitions this year over 7.90m, don’t be surprised if the young Nigerian finds his way onto the podium.

The women’s high jump was one of the highlights of the NCAA Indoor Championships in March and it seems likely that will be the case outdoors as well. Lamara Distin of Texas A&M and Rachel Glenn of Arkansas put on a show in Boston, which ended with Glenn equalling Distin’s indoor collegiate record from two weeks earlier at 2.00m. The marks so far outdoors haven’t been as jaw-dropping. Distin’s best so far is 1.96m and Glenn’s is 1.92m, but they’ve both shown that they can elevate their performance to the highest level when all the cards are on the table.

After finishing 3rd at NCAA Indoors each of the past two years, as well as at NCAA Outdoors last year, Georgia’s Elena Kulichenko has been the most consistent jumper in the country this season. Her only loss came to Glenn at the end of April in Baton Rouge, but she got her revenge two weeks later. Kulichenko beat out Glenn and Distin to win the SEC title in a new PB of 1.95m, which ties her at seventh on the all-time collegiate list.

With these three women going head-to-head-to-head, there stands a solid chance of seeing Brigetta Barrett’s outdoor collegiate record fall and the 2 meter barrier finally broken.

Behind the three favorites, the field includes four more women who have cleared at least 1.90m this outdoor season. Reigning champion Charity Hufnagel of Kentucky is in the field too, but strangely enough she might have a better chance at the podium in the heptathlon, which she enters seeded fifth.