The Tigers earned a pair of top-10 team finishes at the NCAA Championships during the 2015 season as they followed a tie for seventh place indoors by winning their second-straight fourth-place team trophy outdoors at Oregon’s Hayward Field last June. Leading the way were nine All-Americans in such event areas as the sprints, hurdles, relays and throws as the Tigers again earned their place among the top teams in collegiate track and field once again.
They will follow a similar formula for success again in 2016 as they return five All-Americans to this year’s squad to help power a national championship run this spring. Led by returning All-Americans Tremayne Acy, Fitzroy Dunkley, Cyril Grayson, Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake and Jordan Moore along with their powerful relay teams as NCAA title contenders and a heralded recruiting class, the pieces are in place for the Tigers to contend for their first national championship since the 2004 season.
Second in a 10-part series previews the men’s hurdles that are sure to be a key factor in the Tigers’ pursuit of honors once again during the 2016 season.
Men’s Hurdles
LSU’s head coach Dennis Shaver has earned a reputation as being one of the elite hurdle coaches in the sport of track and field with the performance of his athletes over the years, and the Tigers show no signs of slowing down in 2016 with an NCAA title contender returning to the squad in the form of sprint hurdler Jordan Moore.
Moore was part of one of the NCAA’s deepest stables of hurdlers a year ago when he teamed with former All-Americans Quincy Downing and Joshua Thompson in helping guide the Tigers to a fourth-place team finish at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships held at Oregon’s Hayward Field last June.
Moore emerged as an All-America contender in his first season with the Tigers when he clocked the fourth-fastest wind-legal time in the NCAA during the 2016 season with a personal-best time of 13.47 seconds in the final of the 110-meter hurdles at the SEC Outdoor Championships.
That performance vaulted the former TCU Horned Frog into the No. 2 spot in LSU’s all-time rankings in the event and close to Barrett Nugent’s 4-year-old school record of 13.32 set as a senior in 2012.
The reigning All-SEC performer and SEC Outdoor Bronze Medalist will no doubt have his sights set on Nugent’s school record and his first career All-America honor as he returns for his junior season as the third-fastest collegian rejoining the collegiate ranks from a season ago. Moore just missed earning a spot in his first NCAA final a year ago when his wind-aided run of 13.57 was ninth in the NCAA semifinal.
Moore’s debut season with the Tigers in 2015 was also highlighted by a gold-medal-winning performance in the 110-meter hurdles at the 121st Penn Relay Carnival when he recorded a winning 13.84 (-1.9) in the final to join Nugent as the only LSU Tigers to be crowned the Penn Relays Champion in the event in the program’s illustrious history.
A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Moore also heads into his junior season in 2016 as an All-American contender indoors with a personal-best time of 7.70 in the 60-meter hurdles to his name that he had during his freshman season at TCU two years ago in 2014. His seasonal-best of 7.80 from the 2015 season ranks him No. 6 on LSU’s all-time indoor performance list in the 60 hurdles.
Moore will look to continue LSU’s tradition of excellence at the NCAA Championships after the program graduated two All-Americans a year ago when Downing and Thompson lined up for the final time in Eugene.
Downing, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, ended his collegiate career as one of the most decorated 400-meter hurdlers in the program’s history as the NCAA Outdoor Bronze Medalist as a junior in 2014 and an All-American once again as a senior in 2015 when he was the fourth-place finisher nationally in the event. Also a key member of LSU’s NCAA-title-winning 4×400-meter relay team during his collegiate career, Downing was a nine-time All-American during his four-year career while also ranking fifth in school history with a PR of 49.63 in the 400 hurdles.
Thompson earned All-American honors for the first time in his career a season ago when he qualified for the NCAA final in the 110-meter hurdles and raced to a fourth-place finish at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in his final race as an LSU Tiger. The Steubenville, Ohio, native ranked No. 4 on LSU’s all-time list in both the 60 hurdles and 110 hurdles with career bests of 7.73 and 13.55, respectively, in his time in Baton Rouge.
Also returning with Moore as a member of LSU’s hurdles squad in 2016 is senior Shreveport native Morgan Wells, who has clocked a lifetime best of 54.48 in the 400-meter hurdles during his collegiate career.