Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Terrelle Pryor run 4.33 40yd dash

Wake me when Terrelle Pryor's fake 40 time eclipses speed of sound
By Matt Hinton
I'm pretty much sold on Terrelle Pryor as the awe-inspiring heir to Vince Young's torch as the lanky, multi-faceted, absurdly fast quarterbacking beast of every defense's nightmares. The Cleveland Plain-Dealer added another dimension to that today when it reported that Pryor is the fastest player on Ohio State's team, an innocent enough proposition until you get to the details:

His [Pryor's] 40 time was a speedy 4.33. Sophomore receiver Lamaar Thomas said he ran a 4.37 and no one else ran under 4.4 when the players were timed early this summer. ...

"I'm not so sure he might not be one of the fastest guys in the conference," OSU coach Jim Tressel said of Pryor. "I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Our other guys aren't slow."

If that time is correct, it would make Pryor not only the fastest Buckeye, but surely one of the fastest humans on earth. Consider that a 4.33 40 is significantly faster than any quarterback has run for the electronic clocks at the NFL Combine in the last four years, including Pat White (who turned in an official 4.55 in February at 197 pounds), and in fact more than a full tenth of a second faster than any running back or cornerback ran at this year's combine. Only one player at that entire event, Darrius Heyward-Bey, came in with a faster time (4.30) than Pryor's alleged 4.33. Of Pryor's six non-lineman teammates in Indianapolis -- a group that included Beanie Wells, Malcolm Jenkins and Brian Robiskie -- only one, cornerback Donald Washington, came in under 4.5 (4.49). In 2007, Ted Ginn Jr's "official" workout times ranged from 4.37 to 4.45, which knocked the scouts out. Ginn then weighed 178 pounds. Pryor's usual analog, Vince Young, reportedly ran the 40 in 4.58 seconds in 2006 at 228 pounds, on what was apparently considered a "fast track" in Austin. Some plausible (though hardly foolproof) speculation has suggested that a 4.33 is a hair faster than the time Usain Bolt turned in on the first 40 yards of his world-record 100-meter sprint in the 2008 Olympics, or than any other world-record 100-meter sprinter has turned in on the first 40 yards going back to Ben Johnson in 1988.

Terrelle Pryor is listed at 235 pounds. His long, gazelle-like stride does make him deceptively fast. But a legitimate 4.33 at 235 pounds would make him an actual gazelle. A human being of that size moving at that speed is not yet conceivable. This is not Florida-level fake, but still: Totally bogus.

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