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17 for '17: College football's fastest players
A year ago, CFB 24/7's list of college football's fastest players highlighted John Ross III, who went on to break the NFLCombine speed record with a 4.22 40-yard dash clocking in March. We present CFB's 2017 crop of speed merchants just a few days before one of America's greatest tests of speed, Sunday's running of the Indy 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Of course, the only way to be certain of CFB's fastest player would be to line them up all at once for a footrace. Absent that, claims of the distinction are claims alone. A cross-section of standards from the 40–yard dash to various track events cloud comparisons, and of course, some speedsters can carry the weight of a helmet and shoulder pads -- when it matters most -- better than others. With that out of the way, CFB 24/7 tried to find the strongest cases for speed in the game to compile 17 of the swiftest players returning this fall: