Martavious Odoms claims crown as fastest man on Michigan's football team
All last season, the debate about who the fastest man on Michigan's football team was centered around quarterback Denard Robinson and defensive back Troy Woolfolk.
Turns out, neither is.
Receiver Martavious Odoms won the fastest man competition at Michigan's "Night of Champions" Saturday. The event marks the end of winter conditioning and pits teams of players in various strength-and-conditioning-related contests.
Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez said six or seven players finished within about a yard of each other in the 40-yard sprint, with Odoms edging Robinson for the title.
"Tay Odoms got a great jump and I think beat Shoelace by just about that much," Rodriguez said, holding his hands a few inches a part. “Tay’s not one to brag a whole lot, but he’s got bragging rights until the next time."
Defensive lineman Adam Patterson won the fastest big man competition for players over 270 pounds.
Dave Birkett covers University of Michigan football for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached by phone at 734-623-2552 or by e-mail at davidbirkett@annarbor.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.
Comments
timjrab
Tue, Mar 30, 2010 : 2:58 a.m.
Tay ran a 4.35 and Patterson a 4.69. For a DE comparison, Brandon Graham ran a 4.71 at the NFL combine.
Paul Pinard
Fri, Mar 19, 2010 : 2:26 p.m.
DRob has been over training a little in the track season, if he takes a few weeks break to go home over the summer and doesn't do any training but just lets his body rest he will come back much faster...he's run anywhere from 6.81 to 6.95 in the 60M indoor season with his fastest time coming right after the winter break, a 6.81 is quite a bit faster than 6.95 and shows he's been overtraining a bit, but this is the only way to get faster in the long run, he just hasn't had enough break between track and football to see the results.This is how the body responds to training, come fall he will be uncatchable again, but having other guys on the team able to give him a run for the money is a MAJOR bonus for our team...
PortageLkBlu
Thu, Mar 18, 2010 : 7:14 a.m.
As long as they know how to use that speed is all that matters. We can speculate, criticise, complain whatever, none of us knows the outcome of any game. I expect we'll see improvement not only from Michigan but also from some of you bloggers, some of your comments are getting redundant to say the least anyways, bless RR and bless our Wolverines.
DrBlue
Wed, Mar 17, 2010 : 6:19 p.m.
DRob won the indoor 60M race against some OSU speedster so I'd say he's fast enough and if Tay is edging him out then maybe the track coach needs to have a chat with RR
truebluefan
Wed, Mar 17, 2010 : 12:49 p.m.
Yeah trigg, who would of thought?
GoblueinNE_PA
Wed, Mar 17, 2010 : 11:30 a.m.
Did anyone have a stopwatch on them? Do we really know how fast they ran? All we have is that a bunch of guys finished w/in a yard of each other on a 40. If they ran 4.4's or lower, then we could be impressed and have something to talk about, but what if they all ran 4.7's or 4.8's? I'd think we'd be in trouble. IOW, this is meaningless w/o the times. So what if Odoms was the fastest. W/O a stop watch, he could be the tallest midget, so to speak, for all we know.
BlueInBama
Wed, Mar 17, 2010 : 8:23 a.m.
Indeed, Theo. The only frustrating thing about watching Michigan football next year will be becoming dizzy from the camera-man's attempt to keep up with whoever has the ball on our team! Long Coach The King
81wolverine
Wed, Mar 17, 2010 : 8:06 a.m.
That's a little surprising. On the field Robinson looks faster to me. No matter. There's plenty of room on the roster for fast guys! I'd love to see Adam Patterson use that speed on the field more. We could use a fast D-lineman.
trigg7
Tue, Mar 16, 2010 : 9:49 p.m.
Gee...more false information out of UM, who would of thought.
BlueInBama
Tue, Mar 16, 2010 : 7:48 p.m.
One foot on the brake and one on the gas, hey! Well, there's too much speed, no other team can pass, no! So Denard tried his best, juke and move A black head of dreads come and crushed his groove, again! Go on & clock him at 4 point three five With Barwis in place, they're well and alive Take his shoelaces n' all that jive They won't run, over 4 point five! Oh No! Uh!
Ted Bundy
Tue, Mar 16, 2010 : 7:35 p.m.
man I can smell you sparty bloggers out real easy. personally I dont have the free time like you guys to be on msu blogsites and hate on little brother...
azwolverine
Tue, Mar 16, 2010 : 7:01 p.m.
They should not report this! This is inflammatory! Is the media trying to bring down Robinson's reputation as the fastest player on the team? Why would they do that? The media has had it out for Robinson since he got here. I bet that half-wit Snyder from the low brow Freep is behind this conspiracy to usurp Robinson's rightful place as the fastest player. Unbelievable. This should be covered up and re-reported stating that Robinson won the race and is therefore still the fastest on the team.
tomhagan
Tue, Mar 16, 2010 : 6:39 p.m.
doh... RR Mafia will have something to say about this conspiracy no doubt