Speed Hurts you pretty bad, but it doesn't Kill

The old saying is "speed kills." You can't teach it. You can take players to a sand pit and have them run up a hill to improve their quick twitch fibers or explosiveness, or have them jump on boxes and do pylometric exercises, but these methods only go so far. If you got a PrimeTime, Donte Stallworth, Mike Vick, Bo Jackson, you hang onto them, cause nobody is catching them from behind.

But speed only tells half of the story. I have to first mention something that you probably heard before; 40 time does not equal football speed. There is a difference between being fast and quick; so when Darius Heyward-Bey shows up and runs the best 40 at the combine, and his draft stock skyrockets faster than the Russian guy who went into space 50 years ago yesterday, this doesnt mean he is quick. What is quick? Getting in and out of cuts, running sharp, crisp routes, and making moves. You're playing football, not running track. But like I said, you already know this.

What is getting more and more lost is that speed doesnt equal a good player. This may seem evident, but fans, scouts, recruiters, and GMs seem to constantly miss this point.

What got me thinking about this was LSU when I wrote about Les Miles a few days ago. I will come back to them. I also stumbled across an article written by Feldman, which lists the top 10 fastest players in America. I think this is an insider article, so if you don't have access, allow me to reiterate the top 10:

1) Jeff Demps, RB Florida, 2) Marquise Goodwin, WR Texas, 3) T.J. Graham, WR N.C. State, 4) Quincy McDuffie, WR UCF, 5) Travis Benjamin, WR Miami, 6) Skye Dawson, WR TCU, 7) LaMichael James, RB Oregon, 8) Robert Griffin III, QB Baylor, 9) Derrick Hopkins, WR USF, 10) Dernard Robinson, QB Michigan.

Chances are that you have heard of maybe half of those players; Demps, James, Griffin and Robinson for sure. All of them play for major schools that are on TV on a regular basis, so why haven't we heard of them? Mainly because of their lack of productivity.

A few notes on this. Surprisingly, there are no defensive players listed. Secondly, the people you are most likely to not have heard of all play WR. That shouldn't be the case, given that WR is still a marquee position, and why would we have heard of Roy Williams of Texas ad nauseum, but not Marquise Goodwin, or any of the amazing WRs the U has had, but not Travis Benjamin?

Well, the answer lies in their productivity. I will relate some numbers, all 2010 season stats;

Goodwin; 32 catches, 324 yards, 1 TD, long of 32

Graham; 25/316/4/49

McDuffie; 13/144/2/28

Benjamin; 43/743/6/60

and Hopkins is a Freshman.

So, are those outstanding numbers? Certainly not. And I included the "long" statistic, because you would imagine that if you had one of the fastest player in the country, he would not be caught from behind, and would be able to make big plays. Yet, the longest play any of these WRs had combined came from Benjamin, a 60 yard TD in a losing effort @ Virginia. Is this the players' doing, or the coaches? I guess it really depends.

Let's look at LSU though.

LSU's offense is littered with "athletes" as the recruits now call them. These are guys who can play any position due to their speed and athleticism. Last year, they had Reuben Randle, Terrence Toliver, and Russell Shepard at WR. All guys who can tear it up. All guys who were highly recruited at the "ATH" position.

Yet, the three of them combined for 107 catches, and 1377 yards. If youre scoring at home, both Ryan Broyles of OU, and Justin Blackmon of OkState had more impressive numbers in both categories on their own last year. Overall, LSU finished 102nd in the nation in passing.

I know there are plenty of explanations for this. One would be that teams in the SEC play better defense than in the Big12. This would explain how LSU exploded for 41 points in the Cotton Bowl against Big12 opponent Texas A&M, (alebit had only 158 passing yards), but nevertheless had many at home were asking "where was this all year?" Another explanation would be that LSU's QB play was less than stellar, and started the season off with a revolving door (and to this day, they don't know the starter for Fall 2011). Both should be considered, but neither should negate the fact that these fast WRs underachieved for most of the year. No matter who the QB was, and who LSU was playing, there should have been some sort of gameplan to get these guys involved. In other words, there is no explanation as to why Terrence Tolliver had 2 TDs all year (both against Florida), and then had 3 in the Cotton Bowl.

Unless they just arent very good. Hell, they're fast. They may even be quick. But maybe they're not receivers. This is opening a whole nother can of worms, but maybe you cant just take freak athletes and throw them anywhere. There are exceptions, but they are rare. And maybe it takes more than a couple of years, which is all colleges really have, to teach someone how to play a certain position. Unfortunately, there isnt a stat for drops, missed blocks, poorly run routes, etc on ESPN, but having watched a majority of LSU games last year, I can say that they had a lot of all of those. I'm sure that a lot of these guys can outrun anyone, make great cuts, AND catch the ball in practice, on air. Im sure they look great doing it too. But get them on the road, in front of 100,000 people in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and have them run a short post right at S Mark Barron, and see if they're as successful.

I think it needs to be reiterated that speed is great, if you know how to use it. Somehow, it came to the forefront of discussion in the past few years. Ohio State destroyed Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl. LSU destroyed ND in the Sugar Bowl. Florida destroyed OSU in the national title. LSU did the same to OSU the next year. In these games, there was a noticeable speed difference. But all of the teams knew how to utilize it, and they had players that were born to play the position. Ted Ginn and Santonio Holmes weren't just fast dudes, they were fast dudes who could play WR.

The argument for speed reached an apex when in 2008, during the Beijing olympics, many speculated and wished for Usain Bolt to get an NFL contract. It would certainly be interesting to see, but I would guess that he wouldn't be successful (nor do GMs apparently, as nothing was ever worked out). But if you mention Bolt, the fastest man on the planet, to scouts, coaches, and GMs, and they laugh at his potential to play football, why are they more than willing to take people who are less fast, and have them adapt into a new position as well? It seems that more often than not, it doesnt work. A lot of people move positions. When it works, you hear all about it. When it doesn't, which is more often than not, you never hear about it because you usually never see the person play. And when you have people move positions, and not be successful, but still see playing time, you get LSU's offense as a result.