When he came to Texas, Jack Conger was best known as a backstroker. Now, into his sophomore season at the University of Texas, Conger is emergin as one of the best butterfliers in the NCAA.

He was already 2nd in the nation in the 100 fly coming into this weekend’s two-day tri meet against Arizona and SMU, and now he leads the country in the 200 fly after swimming a suited 1:40.34.

That gives the Longhorns the three fastest 200 butterfliers in the country this season. The current top 5:

Jack Conger, Texas, 1:40.34, soph. Joseph Schooling, Texas, 1:41.00, fresh. Clark Smith, Texas, 1:41.42, soph. Dylan Bosch, Michigan, 1:41.65, jr. Chase Kalisz, Georgia, 1:42.22, soph.

Schooling’s old nation-leader from the Texas Invite mid-season was the old school record, meaning that Conger will now earn the right to hang the old plaque from the record board bearing Schooling’s name in his room as a trophy, following in the Texas tradition.

That swim is also the 5th-best time in the 200 yard fly inNCAA history, and makes him the 4th-best performer.

Top 5 all-time performances in NCAA history

Dylan Bosch, 1:39.33 Tom Shields, 1:39.65 Marcin Cieslak, 1:40.19 Tom Shields, 1:40.31 Jack Conger, 1:40.34

This wasn’t an end-of-season win for Conger, this was a January swim, and while he’s now the fastest Longhorn of all-time, he’ll still have some work to do to become the NCAA Champion. Besides his teammate Schooling, he’ll have to battle the defending champion and U.S. Open Champion Dylan Bosch from Michigan in March.

His teammate Tripp Cooper took 2nd in that race in 1:45.02.

The Rest of the Men’s Meet

Scores:

Texas 287, SMU 83

Texas 241, Arizona 126

Arizona 241, SMU 128

Conger’s swim was just the tip of the iceberg for Texas as they rolled to the team victory on Saturday. That was his only individual swim on Saturday, so the race was his full focus for the day, but he also swam in the 200 medley relay.

The day began with that 200 medley, where the combination of Brett Ringgold (22.09), John Murray (25.06), Matt Ellis (21.14), and Conger (19.73).

Texas has so many swimmers with so much versatility that they’ve done some very different things, and in fact haven’t done a single one of their top 200 medley relays the same way this season.

And there’s no guarantees that it will settle here either. In the second Texas relay, that placed 3rd, Austin Temple was a 25.13 (just slower than Murray), and Kip Darmody was a 22.04 (a hair faster than Ringgold).

Matt Korman on the “C” relay was 25.20 on the breaststroke, and Radu Prunoiu was 25.27 on the “D” relay, so that spot is very much up-in-the-air.

Arizona took 2nd in that medley relay with a 1:29.03, including a 24.64 breaststroke split from Kevin Cordes and a 19.60 anchor from Brad Tandy – the team’s two stars.

Into the individual swims, Texas went 1-2-3 in the men’s 500 free, with the race coming down to Jake Ritter (4:24.22) and Sam Lewis (4:24.70). The two never really separated much in this race until after the 300 yard mark, where Ritter was able to open up a small lead. Youngquist was able to push back a bit in the last 50, but by that point he had a full second to make up, and it was just too much.

Clay Youngquist took 3rd in 4:28.40, and Arizona’s top finisher was Chris Wieser in 4th with a 4:31.08.

Next up was the men’s 200 free, where SMU’s Christian Scherubl won in 1:37.26. Scherubl joined the team at the semester, but already has the two fastest times in the American Athletic Conference this season.

Texas’ Clark Smith took 2nd in 1:38.69, and Arizona’s Michael Meyer was 3rd in 1:38.84.

Next came the 100 backstroke, where a Texas 1-2 put the Longhorns back on track for the day. Kip Darmody swam a 47.86 back-half swim to beat freshman teammate Brett Ringgold in 47.94.

SMU’s Sam Straughan took 3rd in 48.13.

Arizona’s best showing on the day as a team with a 1-2 finish from Andrew Sovero (54.44) and the defending NCAA Champion Kevin Cordes (54.60). Texas, though, grabbed big points with the 3rd-through-6th-place finishers.

That, combined with relay results, shows how this Texas breaststroke group is built. There’s a ton of depth, but they need someone to emerge at NCAA’s if they really want to separate from the rest of the country in March. Right now, that swimmer might be Austin Temple, who swam a 54.66 for 3rd place. Imri Ganiel was well behind with a 55.29 for 4th.

After Conger’s 200 fly, Arizona picked up another win when Brad Tandy swam a 19.87 to win ahead of Texas’ sprint duo Matt Ellis (19.89) and John Murray (19.94). That’s a rematch of the Texas Hall of Fame Invite invite 50 free that had Tandy-Murray-Ellis finishing in that order.

Arizona grabbed one more win to close the day’s individual events with a dominant 1:47.24 from Michael Meyer in the 200 IM, which was almost three seconds better than Texas’ Grant Rogers (1:50.06). Meyer, whose best strokes are the front-half fly and back legs, really separated himself on the breaststroke leg.

Texas bookended their relay victories with a 2:56.10 on the 400 free relay. Arizona was 2nd in 2:56.99 that included a 43.64 leadoff from Tandy.

Texas, though, had the best split of the day, when freshman Brett Ringgold led off their relay in 43.37. He was joined by teammates Aaron Gustafson (43.99), Keith Murphy (44.79), and Kip Darmody (43.95).

The Texas men have just a dual with TCU left before the Big 12 Championships at the end of the month. Arizona too has one in-state meet left, when they race Arizona State next Saturday. SMU just has an organized pre-conference time trial remaining.

Women’s recap to follow.

Day 2 results available here.

Day 1 results, recapped separately, available here.