High School Football: Finding Future Champions

Each year United States Colleges award more than one billion dollars to almost 150,000 student/athletes. On football fields across the nation, thousands of students via for a share of college scholarship money. It's not easy to get noticed during the Combines. There are so many athletes. But it's the only chance most football athletes will get to be seen by college and pro coaches. Sure, the exceptional athletes will get noticed because they will prove they are good. But, there is room for the average student/athlete to get noticed.
How do athletes get noticed at the Combines?
First, they must have documented superior performance in high school or be able to exhibit superior performance at the Combines and they better have grades, a lot a A's and B's. College coaches have jobs and reputations to protect and are measured by how many athletes they graduate; they simply won't waste a scholarship on someone who shows laziness in the classroom.

Second, you need a great 40 time. In the football fields across the nation, how can a coach spot the best athletes from the large crowds at the Combines? It's simple: they can't. They look at the 40 time after-the-fact, and start from there. In fact, the forty yard dash time factor of any athlete is the most important measure coaches use to pick potential high school football athletes for future college scholarships. As one coach put it: "Speed is the most important talent a football player can have...if speed is there, I can coach and train in the rest and create a great football player." wrote a coach in an internet football forum.
Speed is a skill and can be learned.

It's true that being able to bench press 400 pounds will impress the coaches and scouts, but speed is what they are looking for. Moving fast on the field wins games, lifting 400 pounds does not. Of course, weight-lifting makes the player strong and that contributes to the overall strength of the team, but speed rules.

Vertical jump is important for receivers, but there are lots of guys who can jump that can't play football. And that's why the 40 must be fast. No one will ever get the opportunity to show a coach their football skills until their 40 is fast. And a players' 5-10-5 or Pro- shuttle needs to be fast to verify a fast 40 time. Average 40 yard dash time for offensive and defensive linemen, and the quarter back is about 5.3 seconds; for linebackers, fullback and tight end, the average is about 5 seconds, for wide receivers and running backs, 4.7 seconds. To really stand out in front of coaches and scouts, any time above these averages will get a tight focus on the potential high school football player trying to get a college scholarship. The higher your scores the more chance for a scholarship. "Show me a high school football player who can do the 40 in 4.4 or 4.5, has a B+ average in academic studies, can bench press 300 lbs. and has a 33 inch vertical jump and I will make him a successful college football player," said the coach via internet forum.

Here are some tips on how to ramp up your 40. If you want more information on this subject, simply type in any of the keywords found in these tips into Google search box or any search engine.

Workout Tips: Your workouts need to be designed for explosion. Explosive kinds of workouts feature bench presses, squats, deadlifts, military press, power clean and snatch. These compound lifts are the center piece in workout strategy. Around this center piece, there are incline bench press, close grip bench press, triceps pushdown, front raises, lunges, step-ups, leg extensions, leg curls, and hang cleans.

Workouts will be a 3 day split. When not lifting, time on the field will be spent running. Running drills should be cone drills, figure 8's side to side, ladder and from 10 to 400 yard sprints.

Probably the best kind of exercise to get your 40 average lower is called Plyometrics. The human body has slow twitch muscle fibers and fast twitch muscle fibers. The muscle content of long distance runners contains large amounts of slow twitch muscle fibers and these long distance runners do exercises to increase the slow twitch muscle fiber content. Sprint and short distance speed runners muscle content is full of fast twitch muscle fibers; plyometric exercises are used to increase fast twitch muscle fiber content. Doing plyometric exercises will not only make athletes run faster, but the use of these exercises will increase an athlete's vertical jump capabilities.

Here are the names of some good plyometric exercises. To get more information about these
exercises, type the keyword into an internet search engine: Lunge Jumps, Squat Jumps, Squat Tuck Jumps, Side to Side, Skips, Frog Jumps.

Reference Links: NCAA.org -www. Nats.us/- NCAAStudent.org
www.nflhs.com/tipsdrills/features/combinetips_04012004_sim.asp - 37k - Jun 23, 2007.