A Number You Can't Measure Consistently Is Worthless
Training makes an athlete better. Testing tells you whether the training worked — and whether the athlete is ready for the conversations that come next. But a test is only as good as the conditions you run it under, and this is where most youth programs quietly sabotage their own athletes. They test on a different surface every time, with a hand timer that adds or subtracts two-tenths depending on the thumb behind it, and then they hand a kid a forty time that means nothing.
At Code Black Associates the rule is simple: measure the same way every time, or don't bother measuring. A number you can't reproduce isn't data. It's a guess wearing a decimal point.
The Four Tests That Actually Matter
There's no shortage of drills you can time. The ones that predict football ability — and that recruiters actually ask about — are a short list.
The 40-yard dash. The headline number. It measures acceleration far more than top speed, because most athletes are still building velocity when they cross the line. That's a feature, not a flaw: football is played in the first ten to twenty yards, so a test weighted toward the start reflects the game. It's also the most improvable number an untrained athlete owns.
The pro agility (5-10-5) shuttle. Five yards right, ten yards back, five yards to finish. This is the truest test of change of direction because it's mostly a deceleration test — the athlete who can stop and reaccelerate in two steps beats the one who drifts through the turn, even if they're identical in a straight line. Football is redirection, and the shuttle exposes who can brake.
The vertical jump and the broad jump. These aren't "jumping" tests. They're power tests — how much force an athlete can put into the ground in an instant. Vertical measures it going up; the broad jump measures it going forward, which maps more directly onto the first step off the line. Together they tell you the size of the engine underneath the speed.
That's the core battery. Everything else is supplementary. If a program is timing ten exotic drills but can't give you a clean, repeatable forty and shuttle, it's measuring activity, not ability.
Honest Benchmarks, Honestly Framed
Parents want a single number that says "good." It doesn't exist, because these numbers only mean something in context — age, position, and training age all move the target. What follows are broad, honest reference ranges for youth and high-school football athletes, not promises and not cutoffs:
- 40-yard dash: many untrained middle-schoolers land in the 5.5–6.0 range; trained high-school skill-position athletes commonly work into the 4.6–4.9 window, and the athletes having Division I conversations are usually under 4.6.
- Pro agility (5-10-5): high-school athletes frequently start north of 4.7 seconds and, with real change-of-direction work, move toward the low 4.3s to 4.5s.
- Vertical jump: trained high-school athletes commonly reach the high-20s to mid-30s in inches, with explosive athletes clearing the high 30s.
Two things matter more than any of these numbers. First, position changes everything — a lineman and a cornerback should never be measured against the same bar. Second, the trend beats the snapshot. An athlete who cut three-tenths off his forty over a training block is a better prospect than one who tested well once and hasn't moved since. Recruiters are buying trajectory. Test often enough to prove one.
The Testing Mistakes That Make Numbers Lie
Most bad combine numbers aren't the athlete's fault. They're the protocol's.
- Testing tired. Speed and power are measured fresh, at maximal effort with full recovery. Run the forty at the end of a conditioning session and you're testing fatigue, not speed. The number will be slow and the athlete will believe it.
- Changing the conditions. Different surface, different shoes, hand timer one week and electronic gate the next — each of those swings the number more than a month of training does. Lock the conditions so the only variable that moves is the athlete.
- Hand timing and calling it official. A thumb on a stopwatch reliably reads two-tenths to three-tenths faster than an electronic timing gate. That's fine for tracking a kid's progress against himself with the same timer — it is not the number to send to a college coach who knows the difference.
- Testing cold. A proper warm-up is part of the test, not a nicety. An athlete who tests without ramping up is leaving real performance, and real tenths, on the table.
Control the protocol and the numbers start telling the truth. Then, and only then, is the data worth training against.
Why We Test the Way We Do
Testing at CBA isn't a one-time showcase. It's the feedback loop that makes the training honest: establish a clean baseline, train one mechanical fault at a time, retest under identical conditions, and let the trend — not a single lucky rep — decide what's working. Las Vegas produces real football talent and a proven pipeline into Division I rosters, but talent still has to be documented to be recruited. Measured right, a number opens doors. Measured sloppily, it closes them. We'd rather it open them.
FAQ
What combine tests matter most for a young football player?
The 40-yard dash, the pro agility (5-10-5) shuttle, and the vertical and broad jumps. The forty measures acceleration, the shuttle measures change of direction and deceleration, and the jumps measure explosive power. Those four cover the traits football actually rewards; most other timed drills are supplementary.
Why is my athlete's 40 time different every time we test it?
Almost always the protocol, not the athlete. Different surfaces, shoes, warm-ups, fatigue levels, and hand-timing versus electronic gates each move the number more than short-term training does. Lock every condition and use the same timer, and the times become comparable and honest.
Is hand timing accurate enough?
For tracking an athlete against his own past times with the same timer, yes — it's useful for measuring progress. But a hand timer typically reads two to three tenths faster than an electronic gate, so it's not the number to present as official to college coaches, who know the gap.
At what age should athletes start being tested?
Light, fun testing can start young to build familiarity and a baseline, but the numbers should be used to guide training, never to label a child. Meaningful, recruiting-relevant testing matters most in the high-school years, and even then the trend over time tells you far more than any single result.