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It’s been quite a spring for Texas Longhorns safety signee Tyler Owens, the freakish 6’2, 197-pounder who vaulted into the top 25 of the 247Sports rankings after a breakout senior season.
Back in early March, as the track season was just getting started, Owens ran a personal record 10.29 100m. And though the Plano East product wasn’t able to match the time, he did make it to the UIL 6A state finals on Saturday to go head-to-head with track phenom Matthew Boling, a Georgia signee from Houston Strake Jesuit.
My view of the boys 6A 100 meter dash!! A new state and national record for @matthew_boling1 10.13!! Running stride for stride with him is Tyler Owens with a time of 10.38!! What a race!! pic.twitter.com/AA64SN6p0z
— Anthony Geronimo (@ATXANT10) May 12, 2019
Owens was faster out of the blocks than Boling and was able to run stride for stride with him until about 50 meters into the race, at which point Boling pulled away to set the national high school record with a 10.13 time. Remarkably, it wasn’t even Boling’s most impressive performance of the day.
However, it did put into perspective the unique speed of Owens, who will arrive in Austin for summer school in several weeks and immediately become one of the fastest players on the team. That particular title belongs to senior wide receiver Devin Duvernay, who won the 6A state title back in 2015 with a 10.27 time. If there’s a difference between the two, it’s that Duvernay’s personal record on the big stage in Austin bested his previous efforts by a significant margin — it was his first sub-10.4 time. So Owens more consistently put up faster times than Duvernay, even though the senior’s best time was slightly better.
Regardless, the task for Owens now is to translate that speed to the football and continue the rapid improvement that vaulted him 775 spots up the 247Sports Composite rankings over the course of less than a year.