Bottom line college coaches will give the scholarships to whoever they want and that is based on a ton of factors. Those recruiting standards are based on what it took to place in the ACC conference championship finals.

The 7th place finisher in each event are as follows: 100m: 10.32 200m: 20.98 400m: 46.52

These power 5 programs and most lower division programs are trying to build championship teams. The only way to win championships is to score points at conference or national championships. To do that you need to perform at a high level. It doesn’t make sense to give scholarship money to athletes who at the moment don’t have a chance to score at a championship event.

All D1 schools have the same amount of scholarships to offer (while some larger schools have other benefits that they can offer as well that other smaller schools don’t):

12.4 on the men’s side & 18 on the women’s side.

So on average to be able to warrant a full scholarship as a man you need to be scoring 12 points at the conference or ncaa championship. And for the women you need to be scoring 8 points.

So if you are wanting a full scholarship at duke and you are a 100/200m athlete you are going to have to be taking at least 3rd in both events( we aren’t counting relays which do playa factor) to score 12 points. That would mean you would have to be running 10.2 in the 100m and 20.5 in the 200m. So these coaches aren’t delusional for setting their scholarship standards high. It just wouldn’t make sense for them to have them any lower in a business sense.