“Son, you gotta get bigger, you gotta get stronger, and you gotta get faster!” Every football player at every level has heard these words countless times.
Jeremy Jacobs is a strength coach for the reigning National Champions, LSU Tigers, and he recently spoke at the Sloan Conference hosted by MIT. He explained how LSU is using technology to track player progression throughout the year. Jacobs made an interesting analogy when explaining his job, “We build our players to be bigger, stronger, faster. We take this shiny new soda can and we hand it over through our staff. Through their season and practices, they get crushed. The strength coaches need to smooth it back out.”
While public data on advanced metrics is hard to find when it comes to football players, as much of it is proprietary and privately owned, some information does trickle down to fantasy football owners. Each year, Bruce Feldman of The Athletic produces a list of the freak athletes in college football. This list has proven to be incredibly useful for fantasy football, an actionable piece of information.
Only two players made the top 25 of Feldman’s list twice prior to multiple seasons in college, Saquon Barkley and Jonathan Taylor. Barkley is unquestionably a top 5 dynasty player, regardless of format, while Taylor is a likely first round pick in the upcoming draft and will go 1.01 in many rookie drafts.
Some of the other players to be featured on the list one time are Todd Gurley, Rondale Moore, Leonard Fournette, Noah Fant, and incoming rookies such as Henry Ruggs, Jalen Reagor, Laviska Shenault Jr. and A.J. Dillon. Feldman knew all of this far before the masses and fantasy players should value this information very highly.
In this piece, we are going to explore which incoming freshman may be able to crack this list, based on their speed. Looking back at high school 40 yard dash time is not always the best method as some poor times include the likes of Saquon Barkley (4.66), George Kittle (4.86), Juju Smith Schuster (4.71), and Derrick Henry (4.72). What the 40 yard dash for college prospects tells us is that if a player has a very strong time, it is more likely that they run track and have experience training for this. Rather, we are going to use players max game speed as provided by @RecruitAlytics1.
The Fastest incoming Freshman
NFL Next Gen Stats publishes the top 20 fastest ball carriers each week. The fastest skill position players at each position all topped out over 22 MPH with quarterbacks topping out over 21 MPH.
Quarterback – Marcus Mariota – 21.05 MPH
Running Back – Matt Breida – 22.3 MPH
Wide Receiver – Cordarrelle Patterson – 22.23 MPH
Two important notes to remember while comparing this data with that of college prospects is that players typically get faster as they progress from high school, to college, and on to the NFL. However, the quality of play in high school is obviously lower so players will have more opportunities to open up running lanes in which they have the platform to reach their top speed.
Quarterbacks
Mike Wright – 21.8 MPH
Bryce Young – 21.7 MPH
Mike Wright is a 3-star prospect from Atlanta, GA who signed with Vanderbilt, who has eight other dual threat QBs on their roster. Wright had a career completion percentage of 64% and threw for almost 6,000 yards and added 68 TDs. He added over 1,700 yards and 31 scores on the ground. Wright shows off his best Lamar Jackson impression on the run where he hit 21.8 MPH.
Bryce Young is a 5-star prospect from Santa Ana, CA who is enrolled at Alabama and has a chance to start as a true freshman. Young was a standout high school QB amassing over 13,000 yards and 152 TDs passing to go with over 1,000 yards and 26 TDs rushing. I expanded on Bryce Young’s devy outlook previously.
Running Backs
A note on the 2020 Running Back class. We are starting to see strong running back prospects come in waves of every three years. 2014 brought us the likes of Leonard Fournette, Christian McCaffrey, Dalvin Cook, Joe Mixon, Nick Chubb, and Sony Michel. 2017 then brought us Jonathan Taylor, D’Andre Swift, JK Dobbins, Cam Akers, Travis Etienne, Chuba Hubbard, and Clyde Edwards-Helaire.
This 2020 class of running backs could bring us something special that is dominating dynasty fantasy ranks come mid decade.
Demarkcus Bowman – 21.5 MPH
Bijan Robinson – 21.3 MPH
EJ Smith – 21.1 MPH
Demarkcus Bowman is a 5-star prospect from Lakeland, FL who signed with Clemson and will start out behind Travis Etienne and Lyn-J Dixon, if he is not redshirted as a freshman. Bowman’s game speed translated into a solid 4.47-sec. 40 yard dash. At 5’9” and 191 pounds, Bowman has a similar body type to Alvin Kamara out of high school. In terms of play style, Kamara showed a lot more receiving ability in high school.
Bijan Robinson is a 5-star prospect from Tucson, AZ who signed with Texas and has a chance to be their starting RB his true freshman season. At 6’0” and 200 pounds, Robinson should develop into the prototypical RB in Texas. Robinson was impressive in high school accounting for three consecutive seasons surpassing 2,000 yards and 26 TDs in each. Robinson may draw NFL comparisons to the likes of Ezekiel Elliott at his size, with a very impressive 4.35-sec. 40-yard dash.
EJ Smith is a 4-star prospect from Dallas, TX who signed with Stanford and potentially can see action during his true freshman season. He is the son of NFL legendary RB Emmitt Smith, but with a much more diverse skill set. EJ accounted for over 3,000 yards and 29 TDs on the ground along with over 1,600 yards and 20 TDs through the air. Smith also showed off his ability to win in contested catch situations, a rare ability for running backs at such a young age. With a 5’11” and 199 lbs. frame, EJ’s body type is similar to the former Stanford legend, Christian McCaffrey.
Wide Receivers
Ja’Khi Douglas – 22 MPH
Jalen McMillan – 21.7 MPH
Demond Demas – 21.5 MPH
Ja’Khi Douglas is a 4-star prospect from Houma, LA who is enrolled at Florida State, if put across from Tamorrion Terry, the Seminoles would have a lot of speed on the field. Douglas is incredibly versatile, he can be used as an ‘offensive weapon’ rather than a wide receiver. In three years of high school football Douglas amassed over 2,000 passing yards, 1,700 rushing yards, 400 receiving yards, and 600 return yards. Ja’Kai also played all four years on the varsity Basketball squad.
Jalen McMillan is 4-star prospect from Fresno, CA who signed with Washington and has the chance for immediate game action with the two leading receivers departing in Hunter Bryant and Richard Newton. McMillan is a rare case, playing as a varsity receiver as a freshman in high school in California. In his career he hauled in 260 passes and amassed over 5,200 receiving yards and 54 TDs.
Demond Demas is a 5-star prospect from Tomball, TX who signed with Texas A&M and has the pedigree and athleticism to make an instant impact. Demas is a skywalker who received 57 offers across the country. Combining his 4.4 40-yard dash, game speed and freakish aerial abilities, Demas is potentially the most impressive athlete in college football. The recognized high school triple jump record is 52’10”, and has stood since 1980. Demas showed off a 49’2” triple jump this spring. Demond Demas should already be on your devy radar.
Honorable Mentions
Kelee Ringo, CB, Georgia, 21.9 MPH
Christian Ford, WR, South Carolina, 21.5 MPH
Jimmy Calloway, WR, Tennessee, 21.4 MPH
Julian Bumper, WR, Elon, 21.1 MPH
Julian Fleming, WR, Ohio State, 21.1 MPH
Kayshon Boutte, WR, LSU, 21 MPH
Jordon Simmons, RB, Michigan State, 20.9MPH
Ebony Jackson, RB, Arkansas, 20.8 MPH
Jaylon Jones, CB, Texas A&M, 20.6MPH
The 2020 class is clearly going to be very fast. In the next part of this series we are going to explore who some of the strongest prospects are in the 2020 freshman class. It would be imprudent however, to not point out the impact that the coronavirus pandemic has on the development of this 2020 class. As we opened, these college players are similar to soda cans, by the start of the season the strength and conditioning coaches have them smoothed out and ready for the season. If these freshmen can’t get on campus and start working with their coaches and learning the system, they may have too much of an uphill climb to make an immediate impact.
Thank you for reading my article and, if you enjoyed it, keep an eye out for my future articles. You can also follow me on Twitter @DynastyDiagnos1 and reach out with any questions, comments, or ideas you’d like me to explore for a new article.
