NATIONAL CHAMPIONS! A&M's men share 2025 outdoor title with USC

National champions!

Coming down to the final event of the night, Texas A&M’s men shared the 2025 national championship with the USC Trojans.

Competing in the NCAA Outdoor Championships at historic Hayward Field in Eugene, the Ags and Trojans both finished with 41 points.

It is A&M’s first men’s outdoor national championship since 2013.

Combining indoor and outdoor successes for the men and the women at both A&M and LSU, Pat Henry now owns 37 team national championships, including 10 in Aggieland.

“As [USC head coach] Quincy (Watts) will tell you, when you start this track meet, for some reason or another, it comes down to the relay, and it did come down to the relay today,” the legendary head coach told ESPN’s John Anderson. “We talked about it as a group. We knew what we had to do. The group knew we had to try to win this thing or this guy was going to win it. It was a heck of a run.”

Entering the 4x400m relay, USC sat atop the team standings, while the Ags needed a lot of help with 33 points through 20 of the 21 events.

Hoping for a miracle, the quartet of Hossam Hatib, Cutler Zamzow, Kimar Farquharson and Auhmad Robinson finished behind only South Florida with a time of 3:00.73 as the Trojans slumped to an eighth-place finish.

And when the dust settled and the math was complete, Henry’s squad did just enough to share the crown.

Earlier in the week — and earlier in the evening — the Aggies got big boosts from a pair of individual national championships.

On Wednesday, pole vaulter Aleksandr Solovev’s collegiate-leading and school-record clearance of 5.78m (18-11.5) helped the Russian outlast the upset-minded Ashton Barkbull of Kansas.

Middle distance man Sam Whitmarsh joined Solovev’s triumph as an individual national champion in the 800m.

In a crowd after 600m, the senior turned on the jets to join an exclusive group of Aggie 800m starts that includes Donavan Brazier, Devin Dixon, Brandon Miller and even Athing Mu.

“It was a congested start, for sure,” Whitmarsh told ESPN. “All of those guys can take it out, and they did. I was fortunate that I found a hole. Praise God for that.”

For the Lake Jackson native, it was a moment of redemption.

At last year’s NCAA Championships, Whitmarsh finished as the runner-up to Virginia’s Shane Cohen.

In 2025, he was not denied.

“Coming down that home straight, I really started thinking about that. I was like, ‘PLEASE!’” Whitmarsh said. “I’m super grateful for it, though. So grateful. So grateful.”

Of A&M’s six Friday entries on the track, only Victor Kibiego (11th in 3,000m Steeplechase) did not contribute to the Maroon & White’s total.

With a pair in the 400m hurdles, the Maroon & White came away with 11 points in the event as Ja’Qualon Scott finished second and Bryce McCray claimed sixth.

After adversity in the 110m hurdles semifinal on Wednesday, Scott rebounded to run a personal-best and school-record 48.29, while McCray also posted a personal-best 49.52.

Yet Robinson scored just two points with his seventh-place 46.07 in the solo quarter mile. The originator of the “Talk Soon” motto originally finished eighth, but a disqualification to USF’s Gabriel Moronta gave A&M what proved to be a critical additional point.

“This is a competitive group,” Henry said of his team on ESPN2. “They were in the mix last year. They’re a pretty young group. It’s a pretty regular group of guys. This group of guys has a lot of fun together; probably more fun together than most groups I’ve ever had. I would say that’s a little bit of a difference.

“This group, they really get along well, and that’s what ended up being what happened here today. They looked each other in the eye and said, ‘OK, this is what we’ve got to do.’ That’s what they tried to do.”

Indeed, every point mattered.

And Friday’s main talking point is that Henry’s Aggies are again national champions.

Also in action on Friday was women’s multi-event star Sofia Yakushina, who sits in eighth place with 3,492 points through four of the seven events. She is 218 behind Notre Dame’s Jadin O’Brien, who leads with 3,710 points.

Yakushina — 2025’s collegiate leader in the heptathlon — and six other entries on the women’s side will be in action on Saturday as the national meet concludes tomorrow.