Rojo claims "several" NCAA footballers can split 46 for 400m in a DMR. Is that true?

Rojo is correct. Why on earth do you guys think that D1 track athletes are faster than D1 football players? You’re out of your mind if you think that the fastest athletes are on the track team.

I'm out of my mind because I think track athletes are faster at track than non track athletes? You're out of your mind because you think that training for a sport won't make you the best at it.

yes, but it'd take some training

No not even with training. Football guys aren't built for running like traack athletes.

When I was in college at a power 5 school, my team had a football player who ran 46, running track half the year and playing football the other half.

No. So much so, it is comical. If current football players could run that fast, the track teams would get them on the track. Maybe there are some who would do well in the 60m, but even that is probably too long for most footballers. The 400m? Forget it.

This shows how low self esteem of distance runners is. They are sure that because they were not necessarily good at other sports, they are inferior to other sports athletes Therefore the other sport athletes could even run faster than specialized track athletes. Reality check: Even in the NCAA there aren't a ton of guys running 46 indoors and they are doing specialized training year round.

Mr no name wrote:

When I was in college at a power 5 school, my team had a football player who ran 46, running track half the year and playing football the other half.

WHY DOES EVERYONE THINK ONE EXCEPTION PROVES THE RULE

i'm going to have to quit if i hear much more of this nonsense.

no, you don't grab any old foot ball player, or even any foot ball player, or long jumper and have them run 46. forget about it.

a 47 split in the relay badly timed could be a 49 400m for real, which explains everything. go ahead an call that a 47 in your dreams.

you don't get 46 without some real specific training for a few years. bolt would run 46x 400m after years of training after the winter, ......

world record holder came back from injury and ran 47.

i guess distance guys have no clues about sprints, at the end of the day. it's another planet for them.

in 2018 a time of 46 flat makes you #161 in the world or #37 in the usa. approx.

https://www.iaaf.org/records/toplists/sprints/400-metres/outdoor/men/senior/2018?page=2

Of course they can wrote:

Rojo is correct. Why on earth do you guys think that D1 track athletes are faster than D1 football players? You’re out of your mind if you think that the fastest athletes are on the track team.

When guys with both Am. football and T&F experience play Am. football, 10.5 100m guys are over 99% of the time the fastest guys on their team and usually one of the top four of five fastest guys in NFL. Elite track guys are faster than elite so-called fast NFL players.

Further, I highly doubt that the average football player is faster than even the average baseball player.

Mike Trout, who is bigger than the average football player is quicker than 95% of football players in the NFL.

rojo wrote:

Star wrote:

I think that if you gathered players from any college football team and had them do one month of track practice, chances are not a single one could split sub 50 if they had no track experience or regular track training.

This is laughable. RG3 hasn't run track in 10 years. You don't think he could break 50 flat? Or does his track experience from 10 years ago count?

Hardloper wrote:

This is one of several reasons the DMR is stupid. You can win a national championship with a 49 second guy, because it's not worth searching for someone who can actually run a national class time.

^^^ We have a winner. The point of the article was I don't like the DMR very much.

You’re missing the point mate. You think random football players could show up and split 46 indoors after football season if RG3 (who is faster than them) can’t? Would their impressive high school 100m times lead them through the race? You have to TRAIN for the 400, very few people on this Earth could just show up on football training and run 46.

Of course they can wrote:

Rojo is correct. Why on earth do you guys think that D1 track athletes are faster than D1 football players? You’re out of your mind if you think that the fastest athletes are on the track team.

First of all, we are talking about the 400m which is not like the 60m and requires TRAINING. One cannot just show up after football and expect to be anywhere near 46 (unless you are a Godsend like Bolt). Second, EVEN IN THE 60m football players do show up to the conference meet (at least in ACCs) and THEY COME NO WHERE CLOSE TO WINNING. A current NFL RB from NC State a year or two ago, current ND CB, current VT RB come to mind. They are fast, but if they were so much faster wouldn’t they all be in the 60m finals at NCAAs?

Rojo made two big errors: first, assuming even naturally fast guys can easily split 46 with no training...no, that is damn fast, and even the handful of guys who might have the innate talent to do so would need to lose the bulk/weight gained from their lifting programs, and work on a little endurance sprinting. I don’t think most football coaches have their teams sprinting further than 50 yards, and in fact you often see guys running out of gas on 80-90 yard touchdown runs.

Second, I don’t have the stats but it sure seems a lot fewer elite football players are running track in high school anymore... so many of them are 100% focused yearround on football, doing seven on seven leagues, specialized camps and skill tutoring, etc. Therefore a lot of these college football players don’t even know how to run a 400, much less have any interest in doing so. I am guessing most college FB teams, even the elite ones known for their speed like Alabama, Clemson, USC, Oregon, Florida State, etc would be hard pressed to produce anyone who could even split 48 these days.

The Riot wrote:

Rojo made two big errors: first, assuming even naturally fast guys can easily split 46 with no training...no, that is damn fast, and even the handful of guys who might have the innate talent to do so would need to lose the bulk/weight gained from their lifting programs, and work on a little endurance sprinting.

Yep, and I think people are underestimating just how much bulk football players put on when stepping up to the college level. I went to undergrad at a school with a top 20 football program, and I had a job tutoring student athletes (actual tutoring, not UNC "tutoring"). Day one of freshman year, most of the football players look like generally athletic high school kids who could excel at any number of sports. By the end of their first season, they are all jacked and look unmistakably like football players. The transformation is crazy.

There were definitely kids on the team who ran fast 400s in high school, but after a few months of football specific strength and conditioning, I don't think many of them could have touched their HS PRs in a race as long as the 400m. They'd still be damn fast by most people's standards, but probably more like 50-52 rather than sub 47. I don't think many people are going to run faster as college football players than they ran in HS.

joedirt wrote:

Yes, they could. The best male athletes in this country play football and basketball.

Yeah, the best male athletes do tend to play these sports. But it's sad.

Unless they're substantially taller than 6ft, they'll never be great in basketball, whereas they might be superb in other sports.

Football wastes a lot of talent through injuries. Also, it's not a life-long sport. A lot of football players become fat has-beens, instead of staying active after their competitive career is over.

longjack wrote:

in 2018 a time of 46 flat makes you #161 in the world or #37 in the usa. approx.

https://www.iaaf.org/records/toplists/sprints/400-metres/outdoor/men/senior/2018?page=2

We are talking a relay. That is more like a 47. That’s 170 Americans. If 46 relay is actually 46.5, the number is even bigger. But let’s say rondo was being optimistic. How many teams didn’t split a sub 48 last night?

Rojo is dead wrong, as usual. Being a (former) sub 1:47 800m runner and 46.6 400m runner who ran on several very fast 1600 relay teams, ran with very fast 400m runners, and knows more than a few 46 and faster 400m runners I can tell you it's safe to say Rojo is FOS.

Mr no name wrote:

When I was in college at a power 5 school, my team had a football player who ran 46, running track half the year and playing football the other half.

Sounds like that person had a lot of track experience and years of training 6 months at a time to be able to run 46.

Much different than showing up and running 46 without specific training just because you may have talent.