College Sports

Louisiana State University has made a bold claim. The athletic department says that 5′6″ junior wide receiver Trindon Holliday is the fastest college football player ever. Not just this season… ever.

The reserve player from the Tigers National Championship team ran a 10.02 in the 100 meters at last year’s NCAA Track and Field Championships. Only 69 athletes have ever run it faster, and none played college football.

Holliday is fast, so fast that he hopes to make the U.S. Olympic team at the Track and Field trials next month. And he probably has a good shot, too.

But fastest college football player ever? Maybe, maybe not.

I don’t doubt his speed. It’s documented that he is faster than prior players who played football and ran track (including the late Bob Hayes of Florida A&M who ran a 10.06 in 1964, and Willie Gault of Tennessee, who ran a 10.10 in 1982).

But there are an awful lot of football players who never ran track. So how can you make the comparison? How can you compare Holliday’s time in the 100m to someone who never ran the 100m?

And that is where the press releases are flawed. You can’t compare, so at the end of the day it is just another press release written to tout a player or school, with some justification but no “hard science.”

That said, I’ll be cheering for Holliday to make the Olympic team. He is as passionate about track as he is about football, and the opportunity to compete in the Olympics is special.

And it doesn’t take a press release to get me to cheer for him.