Football
Terrelle Goes Animal
By Brandon CastelForget the Wildcat, it appears Ohio State will have a real, live African animal in their backfield this season.
According to a recent article on Yahoo! Sports, the only way OSU quarterback Terrelle Pryor could have run a 4.33 in the 40-yard dash, as reported, is if he were an actual gazelle. He might not have horns poking out of his helmet, but according to teammate Lamaar Thomas, Pryor might have some gazelle in him after all.
“It’s the truth,” the sophomore wide receiver said Thursday at Ohio State’s media day. “It’s legit. We ran in the summer on the track and everyone ran on the same surface at the same time and Terrelle ran a 4.33.”
Nicknamed “Flash,” Thomas knows a thing or two about running fast and said Thursday that he expected someone on the team might top his laser-timed mark of 4.37, but he never anticipated it would be the quarterback who set the mark for fastest player on the team.
“I ran mine first and Terrelle was in the group after me,” Thomas said.
“I was waiting and I was looking for the guys that might run faster, like Ray (Small) and DeVier (Posey) and those guys and then out of nowhere Terrelle runs a 4.33. I was like, “Oh man, this can’t be true.” I thought I was just a lie so I went over and asked them and it was true.”
Going straight to the source, Pryor was asked Thursday whether his reported time of 4.33 seconds on an electronic clock was legitimate or embellished.
“If I say, you won’t believe me,” the 225-pound quarterback responded.
But Thomas wasn’t the only Buckeye who verified the gazelle-like run. Fellow receiver DeVier Posey, a speedy player in his own right, did not hesitate when asked about the legitimacy of the time.
“Oh, it’s true. I saw it with my own eyes and I aint going to lie,” Posey said. “He got off the blocks and I was like dang Terrelle must have ran slow today and they yelled it out and I was like ‘what?’ and I ran over to check it out and it was true.”
Throughout the years, Ohio State has developed a bit of a reputation for having a fast track on pro day (every Buckeye who ran at the NFL Combine in February turned in a faster time at the school’s pro day in April), but coach Jim Tressel says there is no denying Pryor’s speed, whatever the number.
“I used to question the guys with their slow trigger finger, or their fast trigger finger, but they say it was electronic,” Tressel said. “Either way, let’s say it’s not; let’s say it’s only 4.38 instead of 4.33, he’s fast.”
Due to NCAA regulations which prohibit head coaches from being with their teams over the summer, Tressel was not on hand to watch Pryor’s run for the ages last month, but even he admits being a little surprised when his strength and conditioning staff relayed the microscopic number.
“I had no idea,” he said. “I assumed he’d be better than a 4.5 because of the way he runs, but I’m not sure I was sitting there saying that he’d be 4.33.”
Although it makes for interesting discussion, whether or not Pryor actually ran a legitimate 4.33 in the 40-yard dash means very little, at least until he is eligible for the NFL Draft. In fact, the next time Pryor runs an electronically timed 40 might very well be at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis (don’t worry Buckeye fans, that is still a ways away), but anyone who truly knows football realizes that track speed and game speed are two very different things.
Former West Virginia quarterback Pat White may have run an official 4.55 at the combine in February, but one look at his speed on the field and it’s easy to see why the Miami Dolphins used a second round pick to draft him in April.
The same goes for Pryor. What he ran in the 40-yard dash over the summer is debatable and ultimately irrelevant, but his ability to run past and around smaller, and supposedly quicker defenders, is hard to argue with.
“He takes really long strides. You don’t think he’s moving that fast, but watch film and he just breaks away from guys and they can’t catch him,” center Michael Brewster said. “He looks like he’s moving in slow motion, but he’s really not, I promise.”
Regardless of whether that translates to a 40 time in the 4.3’s or the 4.4’s, Pryor is most certainly one of the fastest players on the Ohio State roster, if not the college football landscape.
“It’s not bad news for us,” Posey said. “It’s bad news for the other guys.”
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