Ziggy Ansah

[Indy Coug]

Funny. 3 guys in the top 20 on the list were BYU's to lose, and the cougars only got 1. Whatif whatif.

None of them are on offense. So the answer to the "what if?" is it wouldn't have made any difference in terms of wins and losses.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

A very safe prediction.

I think that's a range of 4.0 to 5.1. So Ansah is either the fastest dude ever or he runs with the fat ass nose tackles.

I agree with SoCal, I think Ansah is slower than some members of the animal kingdom and faster than obese Wal Mart patrons, little kids and the elderly.

[byu71]

None of them are on offense. So the answer to the "what if?" is it wouldn't have made any difference in terms of wins and losses.

You have to be hoping and praying Heaps doesn't end up being a top draft pick.

[Indy Coug]

You have to be hoping and praying Heaps doesn't end up being a top draft pick.

Yeah, BYU and Heaps collectively screwed the pooch on that one.

[byu71]

Yeah, BYU and Heaps collectively screwed the pooch on that one.

Crap, I am speechless. We agree.

[smokymountainrain]

You have to be hoping and praying Heaps doesn't end up being a top draft pick.

Lol. That's like hoping Zylstra isn't a lottery pick in the NBA. IOW, I think Indy's pretty safe.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

I can't help but think that Ansah has shot up waaaaay too far. 11th overall prospect? Really? There's Jason Pierre Paul potential (what JPP has done correlates strongly with Ansah's rise), but there's also more bust potential especially if a team expects him to produce right away.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Funny. 3 guys in the top 20 on the list were BYU's to lose, and the cougars only got 1. Whatif whatif.

And Van Noy is sitting there at #58. If things had gone a certain way, that's four defensive starters taken in the first 2 rounds of the draft.

[Flystripper]

Lol. That's like hoping Zylstra isn't a lottery pick in the NBA. IOW, I think Indy's pretty safe.

I don't think anyone really knows for sure how well Heaps will do under Charlie Weiss. We know how he did under Doman and some sort of Anae/Doman dysfunctional hybrid, but I am not sure that is a good indication of what he can be. Chances are he won't be an NFL prospect since so few college QBs are, but I would say his chances are better than Zylstra's.

[SoCalCoug]

I have read that a lot of Ziggy's speed in the 200m comes from his long strides in the second half of that race. Similar to Usain Bolt who never is the fastest guy out of the blocks, but when he starts striding out nobody can catch him. I think this is why Ziggy's 40 times are projecting higher than you would think.

I've also seen mention over and over about his explosiveness and quickness. And I've seen it in his play.

[SoCalCoug]

Ziggy is such a big guy that he probably takes awhile to get up to full steam, so I wouldn't be surprised if his 40 time is slower than the 40 times of smaller guys that have comparable 100M or 200M times.

Usain Bolt doesn't distinguish himself in the first 40M; it's after that point that he obliterates the field.

And those guys were reporting 40 times in the 4.3-4.4 range. Notice how I think Ziggy will be slower than that.

I get the Usain Bolt comparison, because of his size, but Bolt's starting weakness is his reaction time. His long strides don't hinder his start. Here's a good breakdown, comparing his splits with several top sprinters over the last 20 years.

Bolt's reaction time was 0.165, the slowest of all of them. (Ben Johnson in '88: .132; Carl Lewis in '88: .136; Mo Greene in '99: .162; Mo Greene in '01: .132; Tim Montgomery in '02: .104; Asafa Powell in '05: .150.)

So Bolt is generally slow reacting to the gun.

But from 0-10 meters, he's really no different than the other top sprinters. Bolt's 0-10 meter time in '08 was 1.85. Ben was 1.83, Carl was 1.89, Mo was 1.86 and 1.83, and Tim and Asafa were both 1.89. Bolt's top end speed is faster than all of them, and he maintains it for longer than all of them. That's what sets him apart.

But it's a fiction to say that because of his size, he's slower in the early part of the race. The only thing he's slower than the other top sprinters at is reacting to the gun.

Again, I didn't make the Usain Bolt comparison. But it's not an apt comparison for projecting Ziggy's 40 time. A big reason is that reaction time is taken out of the 40. The timer starts on the runner's first movement, so there's no added reaction time.

As to the rest, you simply can't point to Usain Bolt and say look how slow the really big guy is early in the race, we can therefore anticipate Ziggy having the same problem with the first 10-20 yards of the 40 yard dash.

And you can't use that argument to say you expect Ziggy to run a slower 40 than the smaller guys who ran the same 200 time. There's just no evidence that a taller guy is necessarily going to be slower in the shorter distance than the smaller guys.

Another thing to keep in mind is that we're seeing in the draft evaluations a lot of talk of Ziggy's explosiveness and quickness. That Bills draft evaluation linked above, for instance, mentioned multiple times his explosion out of his stance as something that sets him apart as a player. There's no reason that same explosion out of the stance won't help him when he's timed in the 40.

I stand by my prediction on his 40 time. If I'm right, I expect Indy to admit I'm the Supreme NFL Talent Evaluator of CUF.

[Indy Coug]

I stand by my prediction on his 40 time. If I'm right, I expect Indy to admit I'm the Supreme NFL Talent Evaluator of CUF.

IIRC, your prediction had a +/- of 0.5 seconds, so given that gargantuan confidence interval I will concede that you are probably right.

[SoCalCoug]

IIRC, your prediction had a +/- of 0.5 seconds, so given that gargantuan confidence interval I will concede that you are probably right.

No that was me trying to recall what my previous prediction had been. It was somewhere around 4.5-4.6, but may have been 4.45 - 4.55, if you want me to be more specific.

Here's my most recent (and probably final) prediction in this thread:

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that he's going to run right around a 4.5 at the Combine. It would not surprise me if he's around 4.45. It would surprise me if he's above 4.55.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

No that was me trying to recall what my previous prediction had been. It was somewhere around 4.5-4.6, but may have been 4.45 - 4.55, if you want me to be more specific.

Here's my most recent (and probably final) prediction in this thread:

You said a half second, you should have said give or take 5 hundredths of a second.

[SoCalCoug]

You said a half second, you should have said give or take 5 hundredths of a second.

You're right. Indy got me on that one. I did mean give or take 5 hundreths of a second.