Realities of the 40 yard dash....

#101
#101
DuckinVol said:
Can't speak for others, and I agree with all who say the times years ago were subject to all kinds of issues, but we had some true freaks on the team when I was in HS. The fastest kid had serious speed, 4.3 according to coaches, and was athletically on track to choose between football and track anywhere he wanted to go. While I doubt he could have ever qualified academically, he didn't get the chance anyway as he decided he could do better selling dope after his junior season. I don't claim the 4.3 was accurate, but he was absolutely incredible.

Next fastest was a really good dude. Coaches timed him in the 4.4 range as a sophomore, but his knees got worse every year. Don't recall what he timed by senior year. It as still fast, but nothing like where he started, and his ability to change direction was seriously diminished.

Next was a dude who I believe could have gone all the way. I don't recall his exact weight, but it seems it was in the 240 range. His deadlift, squat and bench combo was 1400lbs and he ran a 4.6. He was also dumb as a box of rocks. If I recall correctly, he went to TN Tech on scholarship, but was out after his first semester. There were a handful of others who were genuinely fast, but few of those who made a college team finished for a variety of reasons. I recall one lineman who was big, fast and mean on the field receiving offers from UT, AL, Notre Dame, Miami and many of the other bigs deciding to go to Martin in order to stay close to home. Honestly don't know what became of him.

I say all this to say, there were quite possibly more truly fast athletes at a lot of schools than some are giving credit. But, at least in my experience, other things prevented their ever exercising that potential. Oh, I graduated in '86.
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Got it you played high school with a "true 4.3" guy, and the next fastest guy was a 4.4. You do realize the NFL combine record was a 4.24 recently broken? To assist, I am very close to a young man who was horrible academically, yet he was fast through his schooldays. A small college put him on track scholarship which got him noticed by the US Olympic team and he traveled all over on various junior teams enhancing his technique and speed. He ran an Olympic trials final in the 200 and came in 4th not making the team. He could not run a 4.3 or 4.4 forty. When you actually run 4.3s and 4.4s you get noticed and people are around to ensure you pursue improving that talent. Your experience of multiple 4.4 guys on a high school team is one where you should count yourself fortunate.
 
#102
#102
Remy said:
Got it you played high school with a "true 4.3" guy, and the next fastest guy was a 4.4. You do realize the NFL combine record was a 4.24 recently broken? To assist, I am very close to a young man who was horrible academically, yet he was fast through his schooldays. A small college put him on track scholarship which got him noticed by the US Olympic team and he traveled all over on various junior teams enhancing his technique and speed. He ran an Olympic trials final in the 200 and came in 4th not making the team. He could not run a 4.3 or 4.4 forty. When you actually run 4.3s and 4.4s you get noticed and people are around to ensure you pursue improving that talent. Your experience of multiple 4.4 guys on a high school team is one where you should count yourself fortunate.
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Nope, never claimed "true 4.3." That's what the coaches claimed on their clock. I realize there's a lot of variables in that, and it was in 1984. Regardless, that dude was never going farther. Regardless of grades, he left the team and sold dope. Dropped out at some point during his senior year. Don't recall him ever not being the fastest guy on the field, but I'm not claiming he was a valid 4.3. I realize how fast that is. Next in line had bad knees and got slower every year. Today there might be hope for a guy like that.

I'm just saying, many of the freak athletes we may have seen in high school simply don't have the other tools necessary to go farther. I do think things are better in that regard today, but at that time, and that place, you either made it in school or you didn't. Also, technology allows scouts to find them early and get a jump on helping them through.
 
#103
#103
Reminds me of the King of Queens episode where Kevin James' character is being trained by his friend and it turns out his friend has been tricking him into thinking he was stronger and faster than he really was using fake weights and stuff like that.

Kevin James asks him something like "So what about my 4.7 40 time" and his friend tells him it was only 30 yards.
 
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#105
#105
hndog609 said:
There's a little misinterpretation and a pretty glaring oversight in that article. First off the splits cited were in meters so those raw 4.67 times aren't applicable in the first place. The article then goes on to address that and converts to a 4.31 for 40 yards. Somewhat bewilderingly though the article stops there and fails to address the issue of timing methodology that had just been discussed previously. In this case we'd be applying the combine's method (#2) which would drop that time to 4.21.
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Not to mention that sprinters have to time their launch with the gun, whereas combine times start with the runner. BIG difference.
 
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#106
#106
Remy said:
Note the Hairy (Hairy chosen rather than the former Harry from back in the day) High School types, not only were they sub 5 forty guys but their team had them all over the place. This was THEIR high school experience. How many sub 5 football players, since it seems we have stats these types are on every HS team many on VN was associated with, do you think are playing FCS, Div II & III football these days??? Heck everybody in the skill positions at those levels must be sub 5 to hear folks tell it here?? LOL For those of you professing all these sub 5 times you and your Al Bundy teammates ran back in the day, do you honestly think the 5.0 benchmark was chosen out of thin air? Why not 4.9 or say 5.1?
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Bet you were the fat dude that played tuba in the band.
 
#108
#108
VolFan4Life87 said:
No. Probably an exceptionally small percentage of folks on here who are 25 and younger, still in good shape (still lift weights and are lean) and previously played high school athletics could. But certainly not "a lot of us."
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"A lot" is totally subjective.

I'm 35, 6' 2" 190 lbs and i can run a 6' mile. I guarantee i can run sub 5" with 2 months of training. No question in my mind.
 
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#109
#109
n_huffhines said:
"A lot" is totally subjective.

I'm 35, 6' 2" 190 lbs and i can run a 6' mile. I guarantee i can run sub 5" with 2 months of training. No question in my mind.
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No you can't... can't you read what most have deemedone impossible for mortals. If you could you would have played D1 ball or at least received offers and tryouts for the Olympic team.
 
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#111
#111
Im a big guy though I feel I have always been fast and still would probably come in around a 5.5 40. I know how hard it is because in high school me and a couple buddies did it on a field one day with a stop watch and we were doing like 5.2s with human error. I do feel like a good number of high school athletes can break sub 5 though at skill positions. I went to a 3A school and graduated with a guy who ran a 4.4. He also sent to play for UGA and then the Chiefs.
 
#112
#112
This article is both accurate and wildly exaggerated. What I mean by that is that Clay Travis neglects to mention that age is a very important factor.

If you walk into a large sports bar, find 100 random men, and ask them to run the 40 yard dash, 1 out of that 100 may break 5.0 seconds (if you're lucky). This, however, is partly a function of age. The vast majority of those 100 men are going to be over 30 years old. Probably over 50% will be over 40 years old. Most of these people will work full-time jobs and very few will be doing intense workouts on a regular basis.

On the other hand, if you walk into a random D-1 college (like say ... Chattanooga or Memphis), pick out 100 random guys from athletic teams (such as soccer, basketball, football, etc), you'll almost certainly get more than 1 out of 100 than can run a sub 5.0 40yd dash with training. You may even get 20+ that could break that time. Even if you go out to the intramural teams (ultimate frisbee, basketball, football, etc), you'll probably find at least 8 guys out of 100 that could break 5.0.

So, feel like Clay is greatly exaggerating here. If you can run a 4.9 in the 40 yard dash, you're a very fast person, but you're not anywhere close to Olympic athlete level. There's a huge difference between running a 4.4 and a 4.95. There are lots of people who can run a sub 5.0 40-yd dash. It's just that they are almost all (a) male, (b) in the 17 - 29 year old age group, and (c) work out / train regularly.

Consider that nearly every D-1 cornerback in the US runs a sub 4.6 40. You have to be a fast dude to play CB. You were probably one of the fastest (if not THE fastest) during high school, but there are literally thousands of guys from every class that do this.

Most graduating high school classes in America have a bare minimum of 1 or 2 people who could run a sub 5.0 40. This isn't like being an Olympic athlete. True, you walk into a bar and bet random people they can't run a sub 5, you'll probably win, but it's not quite as rare as Clay is making it out to be.
 
#113
#113
I lined up next to Billy Williams at a track meet in high school once in high school. I wasnt slow. He beat me by 20 yards.
 
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#115
#115
TnBrock16 said:
Shoot man. Does this mean I gotta father a kid now? I ain't ready for this. You can keep em. I would actually argue that many coaches would try to make the 40's slower than they really are to push the kids. Our coaches got nothing out of lying about 40 times. My personal time also wasn't timed by high school coaches. It was during a training course that I did in the offseason.
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You sweet summer child.
 
#116
#116
My Highschool qb was Darius Butler defensive back for the Indianapolis colts. He was the fast person i had ever seen, he ran a (4.38) hand times 40 his senior year when he had multiple colleges out to recruit him one summer practice.

He also ran on our track team (of course) and no one ever thought he could get beat. Little did we know our cross town rival had a track star by the name of Walter Dix, the same Walter dix that has 2 bronze medals from the Beijing Olympics in the 100 and 200 meter. needless to say in the state championship 200 meter race he finished backwards looking at his competition leaving us all in shock. I've seen alot of sub 4.5 40s in my area of highschool ball and would confidently say the majority of the teams i played against had more than 5 on each team.
 
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#117
#117
sofflavol said:
My Highschool qb was Darius Butler defensive back for the Indianapolis colts. He was the fast person i had ever seen, he ran a (4.38) hand times 40 his senior year when he had multiple colleges out to recruit him one summer practice.
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Just as a matter of reference his combine 40 was a 4.46.
 
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#118
#118
Depends on the circumstances.

A normal 40? I might be able to get to 5.0 but it would have to be a good day.

But you send an animal after me? Yeah I'm going to break 5.0 before it catches me.
 
#119
#119
hndog609 said:
Just as a matter of reference his combine 40 was a 4.46.
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I know i can remember we were all disappointed but that just shows how not having a perfect run can change your times. i know he was times twice at UConn and he was at 4.39 4.41, again that just shows how much variance there can be in running the 40.

Deshaun Watson ran a 4.86 in high school but ran a 4.66 at the combine. times change
 
#120
#120
sofflavol said:
I know i can remember we were all disappointed but that just shows how not having a perfect run can change your times. i know he was times twice at UConn and he was at 4.39 4.41, again that just shows how much variance there can be in running the 40.

Deshaun Watson ran a 4.86 in high school but ran a 4.66 at the combine. times change
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Actually it's often not as much "times change" as much as circumstances. The surface you're on matters. How and who is doing the timing matters. In truth a large part of the combine is expressly to try to take as many variables for comparison out of the equation. Comparing player A to player B looks a lot more relevant when the methodology and setting are as closely matched as possible. I've heard it often mentioned that Indy's surface is actually a bit on the slow side. (which as an aside...what the hell could Ross run on a "fast" track?!)

Now as to the original topic I found this very interesting.

The NFL Veteran Combine Is The Saddest
 
#122
#122
hndog609 said:
Actually it's often not as much "times change" as much as circumstances. The surface you're on matters. How and who is doing the timing matters. In truth a large part of the combine is expressly to try to take as many variables for comparison out of the equation. Comparing player A to player B looks a lot more relevant when the methodology and setting are as closely matched as possible. I've heard it often mentioned that Indy's surface is actually a bit on the slow side. (which as an aside...what the hell could Ross run on a "fast" track?!)

Now as to the original topic I found this very interesting.

The NFL Veteran Combine Is The Saddest
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2015 NFL Combine: Real-time 40s to be used for first time - CBSSports.com

Bo Jackson ran a 4.18 in 1986?!
 
#123
#123
#124
#124
buckfama said:
No you can't... can't you read what most have deemedone impossible for mortals. If you could you would have played D1 ball or at least received offers and tryouts for the Olympic team.
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I read the article. He said "dozens" showed up for his 40 contest...I don't know if that means 24 or 36, but it doesn't sound like that many and 1 person broke 5 seconds...none of them had time to train.

He's talking about random people at a bar trying to do it. He's not talking about already fit people training for 2 months to do it.
 
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