Collegiate athletics houses more than just talent. And luckily, all that and more was displayed this weekend at the SEC Outdoor Track and Field Championships. But one boy clearly stole the show with his 100-200m sweep! He set some new and unbelievably fast standards that will now be hard to match even for the pro sprinters all season long. No wonder an American track and field coach wants us to pay attention to a rising trend in NCAA athletics after the SEC track meet in 2025. Any bets on what might be happening?

Well, the man in question is none other than Jordan Anthony. Completing a 100-200m sweep at the SEC track and field championships, running both sub-10 and sub-20 seconds in the same meet, he has reasons to be at the center of it all. Yes, a 9.95s and a 19.93s were enough for him to add 21.5 points to the Arkansas roster and lead them to the men’s SEC outdoor championships title. But the larger impact? Well, his speed inspired Coach Rob to talk about the rising standards of the SEC.

Yes, on May 19, Coach Rob uploaded a YouTube video where he discussed how fast a track and field athlete needs to run to shine at the SEC. Well, the answer is: VERY fast. Coach Rob says, “If you look at the top of the leaderboards like the people who get close to or actually make the final, you’re going to see a lot of the same names across the different events, because in a conference like the SEC where everybody is fast, like if you can’t break 20.6 you don’t even have a prayer of making the 200 meter final.” Well, that’s how speedy these guys are.

Coach Rob further adds that breaking 20.6 isn’t something that assures winning, though. It will just give an athlete “what it takes to like have a shot at it, like reasonably.” Because he says that the ones who aren’t even near this range, let’s say that “the people who can’t break 21 like 21.2 21.1, forget about it…. You just somebody all the way out in the other lanes who we ain’t even noticing.” That’s how fast the SEC or the D1 level standards at large have gotten in the NCAA. And that’s completely true. If you look at the world lead list for 200m this year, we have the top 10 sprinters running below the 20.6s mark already. So if one isn’t this fast at least, they don’t stand a chance.

Coach Rob even says that all of the athletes headlining these SEC track and field championships are usually so fast that, “the unique thing about the SEC is with everything I just said almost every sprinter who’s on the starting line at this conference championship could likely win a conference championship somewhere else in D1.” The 100m world lead list for 2025 is proof. A decent amount of NCAA phenoms, like Jordan Anthony, Kayinsola Ajayi, are from the NCAA. Don’t believe us? Here’s another NCAA champ who ran us with his speed at the SEC champs.

NCAA Track and field is getting faster

Makanakaishe Charamba– this is the name that has caught the attention of many track and field enthusiasts lately. At the SEC Outdoor Championships 2025, he ran a 19.92s time in the first round on May 15. Yes, he was 0.01s faster than Anthony’s long-awaited winning time, which came a day later. Whereas, the rest of the field clocked 20.10s+ timings.

Come the big day, the tables turned. Charamba retracted to 20.08s, and Anthony won it in 19.93s. However, among the entire field of runners that day, it was the two who went below that expected barrier and kept giving each other mighty competition. They were so fast that the title was anyone’s for the taking, pretty much like what Coach Rob said. So, what do you think about these dipping times in the NCAA track and field? Are they soon going to challenge the pros?