Combine Numbers

[C N Red]

40s are fun to look at but the tests I think are the best are the vert and broad jump. They give a good indication of explosion which i feel is probably the most important factor in football.

[Scratchtown]

 

Gregory runs 4.57, btw.

 

Gregory goes 24 reps on the bench.

 

That's an insane combination of speed and strength.

 

Too bad he never used it to full capacity when playing on saturdays

[In the Deed the Glory]

 

 

4.6 is slow for a running back. Every high school sprinter in the Class A 100m final is much faster than that. It doesn't mean they can play football at the same level. I guarantee none of them could change direction at full speed like Ameer and run sub 4 in the shuttle.

 

I was gonna look this up and prove you wrong. But you might be right. The slowest Class A time last year was 10.91. LINK Ameer's fastest 100M time in high school was 11.15. LINK Hard to say if Ameer got any faster in college. So you're probably right.

 

Just proves the 40 is useless in examining a football player.

 

Yeah, this is true. I'm not sure why there continues to be so much emphasis on forty time. It only provides a rough, overall indication of speed and athletic ability.

Most of those are hand-held times. (Both links are the same so I couldn't see AA's.) When they got to state, they ran much slower.

 

Also, this is pretty much apples and oranges because I doubt a lot of those guys are 200 pounds. Now, Nate Gerry on the other hand.....

No Class A districts use hand held times. They are all electronic.

[Mavric]

No Class A districts use hand held times. They are all electronic.

They weren't from Districts either.

[Dagerow]

I thought the huskers, as a whole, did very good. I have to think the S&C deserves some props.

[Old Nebraska Guy]

I have a question for the "combine guru's". Does anyone really know when the clock starts? I ask because Wikipedia says that reaction times are not included in the 40 times unlike track. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40-yard_dash

 

I see three possibilities:

1. Clock starts on the gun, as do track times with Fully Automatic Timing, (FAT). This would include reaction times.

2. Clock starts when runner lifts hand from ground and triggers laser/photocell sensor placed on ground near hand. This would not include reaction times.

3. Some aide off to the side pushes a button to start the clock when he hears the gun or sees the smoke. This would not include reaction times.

 

World class sprinters have a reaction time in the range of 0.12 to 0.14 seconds and if the football guy's time doesn't include reaction time their 40 times should be increased by at least 0.12 seconds, probably more. Or the track guys should have their times reduced accordingly.

[Mavric]

I have a question for the "combine guru's". Does anyone really know when the clock starts? I ask because Wikipedia says that reaction times are not included in the 40 times unlike track. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40-yard_dash

 

I see three possibilities:

1. Clock starts on the gun, as do track times with Fully Automatic Timing, (FAT). This would include reaction times.

2. Clock starts when runner lifts hand from ground and triggers laser/photocell sensor placed on ground near hand. This would not include reaction times.

3. Some aide off to the side pushes a button to start the clock when he hears the gun or sees the smoke. This would not include reaction times.

 

World class sprinters have a reaction time in the range of 0.12 to 0.14 seconds and if the football guy's time doesn't include reaction time their 40 times should be increased by at least 0.12 seconds, probably more. Or the track guys should have their times reduced accordingly.

 

This is an excellent point. +1

 

There is definitely not a gun so reaction time isn't figured in. I can't tell for sure but in the video of Gregory running the 40, it appears that there is some sort of tape that he puts his hand on so I'm assuming the clock starts when he lifts his hand.

[Old Nebraska Guy]

Also, for the speculation that Nebraska high school sprinters could all beat 4.6 in the forty is probably wrong. This site provides 10 m splits for a few old world class 100 m dash events. http://myweb.lmu.edu/jmureika/track/splits/splits.html

 

Remember these are 10 meter intervals and include reaction times. Using the results from the 1999 world championships and a little math to interpolate between 30 and 40 meters to 40 yards the following times result.

.....40 yd........w/o r. t.....100 m

1. 4.39...........4.26.........9.80

2. 4.38...........4.25.........9.84

3. 4.40...........4.26.........9.97

4. 4.45...........4.31.......10.00

5. 4.40...........4.26.......10.02

6. 4.47...........4.33.......10.04

7. 4.44...........4.30.......10.07

8. 4.52...........4.35.......10.24

Extropolating here, it is probably going to take a 10.40-10.50 100 meters with FAT to equal or beat a 4.60 football 40 yards. I haven't been to a Nebraska state track meet since I retired from coaching but I don't remember the state being flush with sub 10.40 sprinters.

 

The fastest footballer could certainly hold their own against the tracksters but there is a reason some guys run the 100m and others run pass routes.

[QMany]

[Mavric]

Not a Husker but this is crazy:

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

If Gregory came in at 250 pounds, he wouldn't have the same time in the 40, but that 235 number is what concerns NFL teams the most.

 

Gregory will go high, and to my eye he's still the guy you want coming around the end as a hybrid lineman. But he could do some interesting things as an LB. He's no slam dunk to succeed. They gotta figure out where he fits in.

[husker07]

To answer some questions about the 40, first off, clock always starts on the athlete's first movement. At the combine, and I'm not 100 percent sure of this, but they may have a manual start (i.e. some guy starts the clock) with a laser finish. They do have what appears to be sensors at the line, which if anything is probably going off the movement of their down hand. As far as times are concerned, despite being laser timed I don't find much in the way of difference between official times given and what I get doing a handheld time. Certainly not the much reported +0.2 seconds, usually I find +-.05 seconds difference. As far as correlating times to the 100 meters, there's obviously some carry over, but a guy who runs a faster 100 may not run a faster 40 than someone with a slower 100. There is some technique involved, as well as what part of the race an individual is particularly good at. Some really fast 100 m guys don't get to max speed until 50 or so meters, in the 40 you want to hit max speed at the 20 yard mark. In my experience though, a guy who runs mid to low 11's in the 100 will run somewhere in the range of 4.5-4.7 in the 40 depending on a couple factors. Guys in the low 11's to high 10's will run in the 4.4-4.5 range, with the really great times (and this isn't always obviously) being guys who run around mid 10's. Sometimes the guys who run national level 100 m times will only be around 4.4 for the aforementioned reason of not reaching max speed until later in the race, while a great accelerator lacking the ability to maybe reach/maintain the top speed of the national level sprinter can run 4.4 with a 100 time even into the 11's. Kind of long and convoluted but there you go.

[Sargon]

The NFL combine times the 40 3 ways now. H/H is apparently still done. FAT has been used some years recently (exact years unclear to me), but never used as official and not ever reported at all to my knowledge. ET (hand start/beam finish) times are once again being used to generate official results. What year that started I cannot tell either. My Google is failing today. This year was the first time ET's were shown on TV immediately following the sprints. I'm guessing the NFL actually uses the FAT times predominately now (I would) but they are not reporting them.

 

ET times on average are most often reported to be about .18 faster than FAT.

Hand/hand times on average are typically reported to be .22-24 faster than FAT.

As has been said, NFL timing starts on the players first move so they all have 0 reaction time as opposed to track timing (runners are scratched if they go within 0.10 seconds after the gun).

[NUance]

 

 

Awesome graphic from the Omaha Sun Times. LINK

[Moiraine]

 

 

Awesome graphic from the Omaha Sun Times. LINK

 

 

 

Aww he's just a 'lil guy.