Canadian prospects vs. U.S. prospects

Colonel_Reb

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<H3>Canadian prospects compare well to Americans</H3>
<H4></H4>
<DIV id=bylines>
By Doug Brown
Updated: March 18 at 07:40 AM CDT
<DIV id=article>
For as long as there have been two professional football leagues in North America, coaches, players and fans have argued over what makes the American NCAA football recruit, for the most part, a superior entity to his Canadian collegiate counterpart.


Now that the CFL evaluation camp wrapped up on Sunday in Toronto, it's time to see whether the physical measures -- on which these rookies in the NFL and CFL combines were tested extensively -- are the biggest components separating these prospects or whether it has more to do with the coaching and competition indices at their respective levels.


Before we begin to compare and contrast these statistics it's important to note at least two differences. First and foremost, the NFL combine tested no less than 333 athletes in Indianapolis in February of this year. The CFL evaluation camp that ran Friday, Saturday and Sunday last week in Toronto looked at a whopping 52. So with over six times the depth of players to examine, you would expect to see the NFL combine prospects dominate most or all of the categories -- though you may be surprised with the results. Furthermore, when it comes to 40-yard times, though the distances are the same, and they were both run on variations of field turf, there is no discounting the fact that the surfaces were not identical -- and in this case let's hope the surface in Toronto was akin to slow-drying cement in order to explain the monumental disparity in the 40 times.


First up is the bench-press repetitions test. Exactly 225 pounds is placed on the bar and the athletes are required to do as many repetitions as they can. There were two players at the 2008 NFL combine that managed to press 225 lbs. 37 times: offensive tackle Jake Long and defensive end Vernon Gholston. At the CFL camp, Tim St. Pierre -- a linebacker from Saint Mary's -- led all the Canadian participants with 31 reps; a difference of only six repetitions between these NFL and CFL prospects.


The vertical jump is said to be indicative of both the athletic ability and explosiveness in a prospect. Out of all the positions at the NFL combine, the highest vertical leap came from running back Carl Stewart of Auburn, who leaped an impressive 39 inches. Even more impressive, however, is the fact that wide receiver Samuel Gigu ®re out of Sherbrooke University not only beat all 51 other participants at the CFL camp, but all 333 athletes at the NFL combine with a jump of 42 inches -- clearing the top NFL mark by three inches.


Explosive


Similar to the vertical jump, the standing broad jump test measures the capacity for explosive movement in an athlete, just in a different direction. Anthony Alridge, a wide receiver out of Houston University, set the bar high at the NFL combine as he was the only one to clear 11 feet with an 11.20 mark. Dylan Barker, a defensive back out of Saskatchewan, was one of many Canadians over 10 feet but came up a little short in the comparison with a jump just shy of 10.5 feet.


Last but not least, of course, is the 40-yard dash. Of all the standardized tests, this is the one that can impact an athlete's positioning in the draft most dramatically and this was the test that was most lopsided in the favour of the American prospects. Leading the way at the NFL combine was running back Chris Johnson out of East Carolina University, who tore off a 4.24 time. At the CFL camp no one ran a 4.2, or even a 4.3. In fact, the fastest time recorded in Toronto this past weekend was by wide receiver Gigu ®re (once again) who posted a time of 4.49 seconds. They say speed kills and this definitely was the test in which the Canadians were most outclassed. If I'm a university coach interested in placing a number of my players in the pro ranks, I might want to bring in the resident track and field coach more often after seeing these results.


So other than the 40, it looks to me like the 52 participants at the CFL evaluation camp in Toronto held their own in the physical tests when compared to their soon-to-be multimillion-dollar brethren on the verge of entering the NFL. You can't help but wonder how much more evenly matched these athletes would also be if trained and coached in similar environments throughout their collegiate careers.





Doug Brown, always a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears Tuesdays in the Free Press.





http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/football/story/41445 50p-4735075c.htmlEdited by: Colonel_Reb
 
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White safety Dylan Barker (6'4", 200 Ibs) was taken first overall in the CFL draft. WR Samuel Giguere fell to 8th, in part because of his NFL signing. All 8 players taken in the first round were white.

CFL Draft WebsiteEdited by: TorontoArgos
 

white is right

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There aren't nearly as many black prospects in Canada as the average ill informed fan would think. One disturbing trend I have noticed is that slotting or brainwashed stereotyping does occur as I noticed one university prospect camp(in Toronto) had virtually no white prospects beyond big guys and in the high school scene if a school as a significant black population the tailback and wide outs will be black....
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ToughJ.Riggins

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Colonel_Reb said:
&lt;H3&gt;Canadian prospects compare well to Americans&lt;/H3&gt;
&lt;H4&gt;&lt;/H4&gt;
&lt;DIV id=bylines&gt;
&lt;P ="byline"&gt;By &lt;SPAN&gt;Doug Brown &lt;/SPAN&gt;
&lt;P ="byline"&gt;&lt;SPAN&gt;&lt;/SPAN&gt;Updated: &lt;SPAN&gt;March 18&lt;/SPAN&gt; at &lt;SPAN&gt;07:40 AM CDT&lt;/SPAN&gt; &lt;!-- &lt;li ="share"&gt;Share Article --&gt;</div>
&lt;DIV id=article&gt;
&lt;P ="first"&gt;For as long as there have been two professional football leagues in North America, coaches, players and fans have argued over what makes the American NCAA football recruit, for the most part, a superior entity to his Canadian collegiate counterpart.


Now that the CFL evaluation camp wrapped up on Sunday in Toronto, it's time to see whether the physical measures -- on which these rookies in the NFL and CFL combines were tested extensively -- are the biggest components separating these prospects or whether it has more to do with the coaching and competition indices at their respective levels.


Before we begin to compare and contrast these statistics it's important to note at least two differences. First and foremost, the NFL combine tested no less than 333 athletes in Indianapolis in February of this year. The CFL evaluation camp that ran Friday, Saturday and Sunday last week in Toronto looked at a whopping 52. So with over six times the depth of players to examine, you would expect to see the NFL combine prospects dominate most or all of the categories -- though you may be surprised with the results. Furthermore, when it comes to 40-yard times, though the distances are the same, and they were both run on variations of field turf, there is no discounting the fact that the surfaces were not identical -- and in this case let's hope the surface in Toronto was akin to slow-drying cement in order to explain the monumental disparity in the 40 times.


First up is the bench-press repetitions test. Exactly 225 pounds is placed on the bar and the athletes are required to do as many repetitions as they can. There were two players at the 2008 NFL combine that managed to press 225 lbs. 37 times: offensive tackle Jake Long and defensive end Vernon Gholston. At the CFL camp, Tim St. Pierre -- a linebacker from Saint Mary's -- led all the Canadian participants with 31 reps; a difference of only six repetitions between these NFL and CFL prospects.


The vertical jump is said to be indicative of both the athletic ability and explosiveness in a prospect. Out of all the positions at the NFL combine, the highest vertical leap came from running back Carl Stewart of Auburn, who leaped an impressive 39 inches. Even more impressive, however, is the fact that wide receiver Samuel Gigu ®re out of Sherbrooke University not only beat all 51 other participants at the CFL camp, but all 333 athletes at the NFL combine with a jump of 42 inches -- clearing the top NFL mark by three inches.


Explosive


Similar to the vertical jump, the standing broad jump test measures the capacity for explosive movement in an athlete, just in a different direction. Anthony Alridge, a wide receiver out of Houston University, set the bar high at the NFL combine as he was the only one to clear 11 feet with an 11.20 mark. Dylan Barker, a defensive back out of Saskatchewan, was one of many Canadians over 10 feet but came up a little short in the comparison with a jump just shy of 10.5 feet.


Last but not least, of course, is the 40-yard dash. Of all the standardized tests, this is the one that can impact an athlete's positioning in the draft most dramatically and this was the test that was most lopsided in the favour of the American prospects. Leading the way at the NFL combine was running back Chris Johnson out of East Carolina University, who tore off a 4.24 time. At the CFL camp no one ran a 4.2, or even a 4.3. In fact, the fastest time recorded in Toronto this past weekend was by wide receiver Gigu ®re (once again) who posted a time of 4.49 seconds. They say speed kills and this definitely was the test in which the Canadians were most outclassed. If I'm a university coach interested in placing a number of my players in the pro ranks, I might want to bring in the resident track and field coach more often after seeing these results.


So other than the 40, it looks to me like the 52 participants at the CFL evaluation camp in Toronto held their own in the physical tests when compared to their soon-to-be multimillion-dollar brethren on the verge of entering the NFL. You can't help but wonder how much more evenly matched these athletes would also be if trained and coached in similar environments throughout their collegiate careers.





Doug Brown, always a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears Tuesdays in the Free Press.





http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/football/story/41445 50p-4735075c.html</div>

I think Samuel Giguere would be a 4.4 flat guy at the NFL Combine; he has run numerous hand-timed sub 4.4s before according to his coaches. The very slow surface mentioned by the article writer "fast drying cement" probably has something to do with the bigger disparity. They just changed the NFL combine track, for this year I heard, to a faster surface. So you could probably take the CFL 40 times and move them .06-.12 faster. So you could say that Darryl Stephenson really ran a 4.61 (instead of 4.7), which with his credentials (even though he played in the CIS) should have made him a probable late round talent. It's too bad that NFL talent evaluators aren't fair minded like me and use any excuse they can get to screw a white player over!
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white is right said:
There aren't nearly as many black prospects in Canada as the average ill informed fan would think. One disturbing trend I have noticed is that slotting or brainwashed stereotyping does occur as I noticed one university prospect camp(in Toronto) had virtually no white prospects beyond big guys and in the high school scene if a school as a significant black population the tailback and wide outs will be black....
smiley11.gif
Even if high school football in Toronto is dominated mostly by Blacks, it is good to see that the ones who emerge to play College and CFL ball in this country are mostly white.
 
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