I was involved in a conversation recently with some SEC people and as you might imagine, the subject of "team speed" came up. They naturally assumed Alabama would be the all-around faster team in the up-coming game because they're in the SEC and we're in the B1G.
I know that makes no sense - but people from that region apparently really believe that everty team in the SEC is automatically faster than every team in the B1G - including Ohio State.
Now - we know that's not true - but I'm having a real problem proving it. I'm not one of those who believes a guy's time over forty yards in his 'underwear' is the absolute indicator of a player's "football speed" but for purposes of discussion, it's the only quantifiable measurement we have. But I'm having no luck whatsoever finding any current figures on either team - or for pretty much anyone else, for that matter.
I found some dated information on 11W for the Buckeyes - Bradley Roby was extremely fast, by the way - but not much else at the college level. Of course, the recruiting sites have data on a lot of the guys - but by definition, that's from their high school days.
Incidentally, there's good info available on the fastest guys in the NFL. For the all-time fastest players there's an interesting gap in the top 40 times between the era when they went to strictly electronic timing - and before. Nobody's run under a 4.2 since the change to electronic timing only, by the way.
So - I'd be interested if anyone knows if and where that kind of information is available. I have a feeling we could probably shut a lot of SEC acolytes up in the process.