2016 Season Preview: Sprints

Antwan Wright is looking to make his last year as a Gator his best one yet.

2016 Season Preview: Sprints

Wednesday, January 20, 2016 | Track and Field

Florida's sprint corps is reloaded and ready to chase more championships in 2016

By: Zach Dirlam

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The University of Florida track and field program has routinely produced one of the nation's top sprint groups over the past 20 seasons, and there's every indication it will do so again in 2016.

This year's group of returners features eight national champions and seven Southeastern Conference champions. Add in nearly a handful of newcomers who have the potential to be immediate contributors, and the result is a loaded sprint corps.

Below is a preseason synopsis of the Gators' sprinters.

Sprints (60 meters; 100 meters; 200 meters; 400 meters)
Headlining the 2016 sprinters are Najee Glass and Kyra Jefferson, both of whom were named to The Bowerman Preseason Watch Lists.

Jefferson had a monster 2015 campaign, finishing with three national titles and three SEC titles. One of those national championships came in the indoor 200 meters, an event she swept at both the indoor and outdoor SEC Championships. She will attempt to become the fifth woman in Division I history to win consecutive 200 meters titles at the NCAA Indoor Championships.

Glass, a six-time All-American both indoors and outdoors, snagged a conference crown in the indoor 400 meters. The Woodbridge, N.J. product was also named the 2015 United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association South Region Indoor Athlete of the Year.

Both should once again be national title contenders in their respective individual events.

There's also a deep group of runners returning in the 400 meters.

Destinee Gause, Hugh Graham Jr., Arman Hall, Robin Reynolds and Nick Uruburu are all back, along with Glass. Each of them has garnered an All-America honor in the 400 meters, whether it be indoors or outdoors, at some point during their respective UF careers.

25873 — Arman Hall's resurgence could see the Gators collect multiple titles this year.

That doesn't even include true freshmen Kunle Fasasi and Sharrika Barnett, who could be a pleasant surprise in the event for the Gators this season. Fasasi enters as a two-time 2015 African Junior Athletics Championships bronze medalist, while Barnett comes to Gainesville having won the 400 meters gold medal at the 2015 New Balance Nationals Outdoor.

If all of them run as well as they are capable of, the 400 meters lanes could be loaded with Gators for the conference and national finals.

Antwan Wright will look to regain the form that saw him reach the NCAA Championships finals in the 60 meters and 100 meters back in 2014. The senior from Riviera Beach, Fla. took sixth in the 100 meters at the United States Track and Field Outdoor Championships during the summer of 2014 as well.

Wright and newcomer Michael Timpson Jr. will jostle for intra-squad superiority in the 100 meters all season long.

Fellow newcomer Ryan Clark, who won a pair of bronze medals this past summer at the Pan American Junior Games, could also make an immediate impact in the 100 and 200 meters.

Shayla Sanders should once again vie for an indoor national title in the 60 meters. Come spring, she'll be looking for a breakthrough performance capable of getting her back into the 100 meters final—which she reached in 2014—at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.

Sprint Relays (4x100 meters; 4x400 meters)
Every member of the women's 4x100-meter and 4x400-meter relay teams that captured outdoor national championships are back.

27101 — With both women's outdoor relay teams returning, UF's sprinters are eyeing more national titles.

Claudia Francis, Destinee Gause, Jefferson, and Reynolds, a top-eight finisher in the 400 meters both indoor and outdoor NCAA Championships last season, make up the 4x400 relay.

Gause, Jefferson, Reynolds, and Sanders make up the 4x100 relay, which won the Florida's first women's national title and broke the 23-year-old school record in the event last season.

The men's relays could interchange several runners throughout the year, particularly during the outdoor season when Graham is able to compete.

Glass, Graham, Hall, and Wright have all won national championships as a member of one of the relay teams during their UF careers. Redshirt junior Eric Futch, Uruburu—who helped the Gators win the SEC title in the outdoor 4x400 relay last season—and newcomers like Clark, Fasasi, and Timpson will bolster the depth the Gators have to work with this season.

Notable Numbers

Florida owns the most indoor men's sprint national titles (six) by a Division I program since 1996
UF's four indoor men's 400 meters national titles are tied for the most by any program in Division I history, while its three men's 60 meters national titles are the most in Division I history
The Gators are one of four Division I programs since 1996 with multiple national titles in both the outdoor men's 100 and 200 meters
Florida's five men's 4x100-meter relay national titles since 2003 are the most by any Division I program during that span, while its six overall titles are tied for the third-most in Division I history
UF is one of two Division I programs since 2003 to win multiple outdoor national titles in both the men's 4x100-meter and 4x400-meter relays
Florida is one of three SEC programs in Division I history to win a national title in the indoor women's 200 meters, 400 meters, and 4x400-meter relay
The Gators are one of three Division I programs in history with three outdoor women's 4x400-meter relay national titles
UF is one of two programs in Division I history whose men and women have both swept the 4x100-meter and 4x400-meter relays at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, as the men did in 2013 and the women did in 2015