Winning a national championship in college track and field is so hard to do, that some future Olympians never pulled it off. The number of great sprinters pass through Division 1 is so high in fact, the question isn’t really if they ran in college, but how great were they when they did. In 2008 Walter Dix and Richard Thompson both ran the NCAA 100 meter final just weeks before getting the bronze and silver medals in the Olympics behind Usain Bolt. In 2017 Christian Coleman dominated the NCAA sweeping the sprints both indoors and outdoors, and breaking collegiate records along the way. Afterwards he beat Usain Bolt to earn a silver medal at the World Championships. 

However in 2022 something ridiculous happened. Terrence Jones ran the 60 meter dash for the first time ever in college. But he didn’t just win, he ran 6.45 seconds, which tied the collegiate record when he did it. That makes him the fastest man to ever run in the NCAA, in its shortest event. That means it is literally the fastest race you can run. Historically freshman sprinters don’t break records like that. Even Trayvon Bromell, who won an NCAA championship in the 100 meter dash as a freshman, and later became the 60 meter dash World Champion in 2016, never ran close to that time in college! The truth is that Terrence Jones is the fastest man to ever run in college, whether or not you know it. He has racked up enough wins by now to back it up. So much so that he can no longer really win a national championship in the 60 or the 100. The only thing that can happen is for him to potentially fail to win and this is the reason why.

How good as Terrence Jones before college? 

Terrence Jones of Texas Tech might seem to have come from out of nowhere. But that is only because he technically did, at least if you are an American track fan. His greatness did start at the high school but he is originally from the Bahamas. In fact he first proved himself on the track as a 400 meter runner, winning the Carifta Games, which is basically a youth championship for all Carribean nations for athletes under 20. Later in 2021 he proved himself in the 100 meter dash, winning the NACAC championship for athletes under 23 from North America and Central America. So when he got to Texas Tech they knew how good he actually was. The only people who didn’t was the rest of the NCAA because honestly we weren’t paying attention to either of those meets back then. 

Terrence Jones’s “controversial” collegiate record 

His first college season was technically in 2021, where he never ran the 100 meter dash, not even once. He actually qualified for the NCAA championships in the 200 meter dash, but scratched his way out of the meet. So entering 2022 he was still largely an unknown sprinter, especially in the NCAA’s shortest event. Then in his first meet of the season Terrence Jones ran 6.45 in the finals of the Corky Classic. All that matters is that it tied the collegiate record and was so fast that nobody was even within a tenth of a second of him. Remember this was his first 60 meter dash race ever, for a man who never ran the 100 meter dash as far as we knew. Theories even float around the internet that it was a clock error, or a false start that was never called by the officials. And those rumors stood because he never ran the 60 meter dash again until the NCAA Championship meet. In his preliminary race he later false started but at that time he was still relatively unknown.

Terrence Jones is an NCAA champion 

Later that year Terrence actually made the NCAAs again in the 100 meter dash later that year, but didn’t qualify into the final. That wasn’t really his fault, because he ran into a strong minus wind in the prelims, for the only heat to do it. Had he ran in any other heat, it is pretty safe to say, he would have made the finals. So 2023 was Terrence’s first real chance to prove that his freshman 60 meter dash was not a fluke. Which is exactly what he did. He won the Big 12 Indoor championship and later the entire NCAA championship in 6.46 seconds, just one hundredth off of his collegiate record in both meets. That proves that Terrence Jones is legit, because honestly nobody has ever run that fast that many times in a college uniform.

What is next for Terrence Jones

Terrence Jones didn’t make the NCAA championship final in the 100 meter dash again in 2023. He was actually winning a whole lot through the regular season. But he did finish third in the 200 meter dash, behind only Nigeria’s Udodi Onwuzurike and his teammate Courtney Lindsey who actually did win the NCAA championship in the 100 meter dash, and qualified for team USA in the 200 later that season. It is what the future of Terrence Jones’s career will look like, but Terrence Jones is a generational talent, who wasn’t even supposed to run the short sprints to begin with. We know he is going to be there at the Olympics, because honestly nobody else in the Bahamas is taking his spot. But he is now consistently the fastest man to ever run in college. The only thing we are waiting for him to do, is to run that fast, all the way through 100 meters, specifically in a race where the entire world is watching.

LOOK GOOD, FEEL GOOD, RUN GOOD.

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