It’s that time of year again. Seems like every year around this time, there’s a big fuss over the ridiculous 40 times put up by various football players. As usual, the 40 yard splits of Ben Johnson, Carl Lewis, and now Usain Bolt (Johnson’s split was a reported 4.37; Bolt’s about a 4.35) are thrown into the discussion as evidence that these football times are simply smoke-and-mirrors, that [insert player’s] extremely fast 40 time absolutely must be inflated or illegitimate, since top 100m sprinters didn’t run their 40 yard splits that fast in record-breaking races.

Now it’s true that some universities have a reputation for reporting *ahem* particularly fast 40 times (*cough* Virginia Tech *cough*), with the times they report rarely being anywhere close to the times their players run at the NFL Combine (I’m looking at you, Cory Moore; a 4.39 does not translate to running a 4.7 at the Combine). That said, many universities (including my alma mater, Florida State) have transitioned to electronic/laser timing in order to ensure consistently reliable times (this is why FSU athletes have consistently posted comparable 40 times on campus and at the Combine since 2001, when we transitioned to the laser system). This time, it’s one of those universities (Ohio State) that uses a laser system that has produced a player causing this year’s controversy: Terrell Prior’s 4.33 is being widely panned as simply unrealistic.

Before I continue, let me first point out that I think the 40 time is way overrated by recruitniks, draftniks, and other sorts of footballniks. I would rather see a player’s vertical leap, pro shuttle time, and 100m time (in that order) as better determining factors of performance. The best football player I ever played with was a wide receiver who ran in the high 4.5 to low 4.6 range: Anquan Boldin. I really don’t think that 40 time reflects just how good a football player that guy was and is.

That said, there are a few things that need to be considered before crying “foul” at the first sight of a blistering 40 time:

1. Track times start from the gun, not from the movement of the sprinter. 40 times start on the movement of the athlete. That difference accounts for anywhere from .15 to .2 seconds, depending on how fast the track athlete starts, in terms of the actual 40 yard split. So Ben Johnson’s 4.37 was around a 4.21 taking reaction time into account, and even lower if converting to hand timing.
2. 100m sprinters are not trained to be at top speed through the first 40 yards; they have a longer acceleration phase than a 40 yard dash allows for. Their goal is to continue building speed over a longer distance in order to sustain enough speed to run a faster time over a longer distance. Usually their top speed is between the 60 and 70m mark. Football guys, who train for much shorter bursts, are generally hitting their top speed earlier. This is why the “split en route” is so deceptive—these 100m splits aren’t the fastest 40 yard times those sprinters could hit, because they’re not trying to win to the 40 yard mark, but to the 100m mark.
3. If the 40 was hand-timed, cry away; it may well have been a bit fast. Hand times tend to be around .15 to .2 faster than electronic times.
4. If the 40 is a high school time, add about .15 or .2 to the time to determine what the kid will legitimately run when he gets to college/at the combine. Take note of Rivals.com’s comparison of 2009 Combine testing numbers with the numbers those players put up at Rivals high school combines as high school seniors four or five years earlier. Note that most of the NFL times are significantly slower than the HS times (a function of different surfaces and more stringent timing standards). Exception to this: some high school camps (such as the Rivals camps, which started timing electronically in 2005) now test electronically, in which case, the time might be legit, though some electronic systems are a little easier to “cheat” (e.g. with a “rolling start”) if they’re not watched strictly by camp personnel.
5. Some football guys (Deion Sanders, John Capel, Bo Jackson, among others) have/had legitimate world class speed and are/were capable of competing at the highest level in the 100m or 200m. I don’t doubt that Deion’s 4.28 at the NFL Combine was legitimate; he was the only guy ever to run under 4.3 on the old (slow) Hoosier Dome turf at the NFL combine and was one of the fastest players in NFL history. (Bo’s 40 is reported between 4.12 and 4.19 at various Internet sites, but there is no verification for either time.)
6. Check the surface. Some teams run on super-fast track surfaces, while other teams run on field turf or grass. Pro scouts have a little chart to adjust the times based on surface (the chart adjusts things back to theoretical Combine times). A time run on the notoriously fast University of Tennessee track surface will have around .2 added to it; times at the FSU track will have about .15 added (FSU now usually times on field turf, meaning no adjustment). The combine turf used to be notoriously slow, but now that the rug has changed, the times are about a tenth faster than they used to be.

Hopefully, this will help restore some sanity to a few folks’ thinking when they’re seeing what seem to be ridiculously low 40 times. Sometimes those times are indeed legitimate, within the constraints of timing from movement rather than from the gun.

Oh, and I should mention one more thing for the FSU fans out there who somehow think Peter Warrick’s 40 time was inflated at FSU due to his running a 4.6 for the scouts on the slick wood floor of Tully Gym (where Laveranues Coles ran a 4.4): he may have run a 4.6 in that environment, but he ran a 4.48 two weeks later (the link is old; you have to highlight the page to see the text now) in a private workout for the Redskins (the scouts subtracted .15–.2 from everyone’s Tully Gym times based on their chart anyway). The guy was not slow, nor was his 40 time slow. Again, be mindful of the surface when considering or comparing 40 times.

So, returning to the point, do I think Prior’s 4.33 was illegitimate? No, I think he ran that time legitimately (on an electronic system), albeit on a fast track. Does that mean he has world-class speed? No, it just means he has a really fast 40 time and has trained for his start. Does it mean he’d run a 4.3 at the combine? That’s doubtful, since the surface is different. It’s more likely that would turn into a low to mid 4.4 at the combine, which is still unbelievably fast for a quarterback.