Over the weekend, a crazy thing happened in College Station, Texas: a college freshman became the sixth-fastest 800m runner in U.S. indoor history.

Let that soak in for a minute.

No American had broken 1:46 on an indoor track since 2003, that was until Texas A&M’s Donavan Brazier did it on Saturday just eight months removed from graduating high school. The frosh's 1:45.93 World lead in his 800m collegiate debut was so ridiculous that the thought of him qualifying for the Olympic team suddenly doesn't seem far-fetched.

Think about it. None of the big dogs in the U.S. right now have ever run faster indoors than Brazier just did in early January of his freshman year. Not Solomon, not Symmonds, Loxsom, Berian, nobody. I understand that these guys put most of their focus on outdoor, but the guy with the fastest indoor PR shouldn't be discounted simply because he's only 18.

And if there was anyone within 5.7 seconds of him on Saturday, it most likely would’ve been much faster. There wasn’t, so the fifth best time in NCAA history will have to do. For now. He looked sooooo easy, guys. No form breakdown, nothing. And again, this is mid-January-- the four guys ahead of him in the collegiate record book all ran their times at either NCAAs or at the World Championships.

So here we have a kid who is the fastest active indoor 800m runner in the entire country, and he did it with just one swing of the bat. With that in mind, and as it stands today, it's fair to say Brazier has a shot to make the Olympic team in July.

It’s just one race, but this kid is clearly a mega star. Is it a stretch to imagine Brazier finishing top three at the Trials? Not at all. Andrew Wheating did it as an Oregon sophomore back in 2008, and Brazier is leaps and bounds ahead of what he was running the winter before the Trials. It’s not inconceivable to think he could be in 1:44 shape by the summer (1:44.6 made the team in 2012), as long as he isn’t too burnt by then.

As such, there are no guarantees, and the difficulty of rounds is often easy to overlook, but the key here is that Brazier debuted with a 1:45 in essentially a time trial. With competition on an outdoor track, he’s sure to go loads faster.

At this point, the Trials aren’t on his radar as Brazier stated afterwards that his main goal is to make the U.S. junior team. However, in the same breath he said that he just wanted to make the travel team coming into the season, so I’ve got a feeling that his expectations will rise again if the times continue to lower.

It may be startling to consider this a reality with such little to work with, but the ease with which this kid glided to the fastest time by an NCAA athlete in nearly 15 years should be the number one evaluation of his potential to quickly ascend to the top of U.S. 800m ranks, not his inexperience.

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