NEW ORLEANS – The USTFCCCA released The Bowerman Men’s Preseason Watch List on Wednesday, the first edition before seven in-season updates are released throughout the indoor and outdoor seasons.
The fastest-returning sprinter in collegiate track and field, Godson Oghenebrume, is now the ninth man from LSU to reach watch list status. The Tigers have had at least one student-athlete on the watch list in each of the last six years (Mondo Duplantis, JuVaughn Harrison, Terrance Laird, Noah Williams, Sean Burrell), making LSU the active leader in this category.
During the 2023 indoor and outdoor seasons Oghenebrume solidified himself as one of the top sprinters in the world during his historic-collegiate campaign. The junior racked up bronze across the 60-meter dash at the SEC Indoor Championships after running 6.58, the third-fastest time in LSU performance-list history, just weeks prior at the LSU Twilight.
Outdoors was when the Ughelli, Nigeria, native really showed his potential with the Tigers. At the NCAA Outdoor Championships Oghenebrume finished with silver in the 100-meter finals with the second-fastest time in LSU performance list history of 9.90 seconds, just .01 from the record set by Olympic sprinter Richard “Torpedo” Thompson. The time of 9.90 was his fourth sub-10 second time of the season and ranked third in Nigerian history, seventh in African history, and seventh in NCAA history. Prior to the NCAA Championships, Oghenebrume finished first to take gold in the 100m at the SEC Outdoor Championships with a time of 10.04 seconds.
All of the track world was talking about the dominant LSU 4×100-meter relay team that Oghenebrume anchored to a new collegiate record. At the SEC Outdoor Championships he helped bring the team to a time of 37.90 seconds in title winning fashion. To close out their season together, Oghenebrume and his relay teammates (Brandon Hicklin, Dorian Camel, and Da’Marcus Fleming) captured gold at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. The ground-breaking team ran four top-10 times in the world and five top-10 times in collegiate performance-list history.
Godson finished the season with many honors, some including: 2023 USTFCCCA South Central Region Track Athlete of the Year, 2023 LSWA Men’s Track Athlete of the Year, USTFCCCA First Team All-American (x2), First Team All-SEC (x2), and SEC Runner of the Week (x2).
Tzuriel Pedigo is receiving votes for the prestigious watch list for the first time in his collegiate career.
During the 2023 outdoor season Pedigo continued to show why he is the greatest javelin thrower in LSU history, and one of the top Americans in the event. The Baton Rouge, La.m native closed the collegiate season resetting his LSU record with 79.79 meters (26’1 9”) to take gold at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. He then went on to compete at the USATF Outdoor Championships as a finalist in javelin.
Besides just becoming a two-time national champion in javelin, Pedigo received some of the following honors: LSWA Men’s Field Athlete of the Year, USTFCCCA First Team All-American, Second Team All-SEC, and SEC Men’s Field Athlete of the Week.
The next men’s and women’s editions of The Bowerman Watch List will be released February 7-8. For more about The Bowerman, visit ustfccca.org.
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