Football player or sprinter? LSU's Holliday on track in both

This is second of a two-part series on the fastest players in college football.
Tuesday: Jeremy Maclin wants a match race
Thursday: The fastest player ever

They're still trying to find a label for Trindon Holliday.

If it's easy to master the Three Rs in the classroom, then it must be advanced calculus to nail down the Three Rs for the LSU junior. Is he a running back? A returner? A receiver? In varying degrees he's all of those things, just not often enough to be more than a complimentary player so far for the national champions.

In Beijing this summer there could be an equally confounding riddle. What's that equipment manager doing in the blocks for the U.S. in the 100-meter final?

Answer: That 5-foot-6 dude? That's our guy, Trindon, chasing an Olympic medal.

Holliday's story would be easier to figure out if we could slap a designation on him. But this is the USA -- United States of Absolute. We like our idols American, our beer lite and our sitcoms formulaic. In two seasons as LSU's super-fast secret weapon, Holliday has been hard to chase down on two surfaces. Harder to define, in general.

In football, Holliday has touched the ball only 95 times in two seasons (3.5 per game), averaging 12.7 yards every time he has done so. As a track star, he is one of the fastest sprinters in the country -- maybe the world -- with a chance to make the U.S. Olympic team next month.

That's why questions still nag: Is he a football player who dabbles in track or a budding world-class sprinter who is pretty good at football too?

"He is a football player with track ability," Tigers football coach Les Miles said.

"Just like playing football for LSU is very, very important to him," LSU track coach Dennis Shaver said, "this is too."

Even Holliday, on his MySpace page, won't break the tie listing his "occupation" as "running track AND playing football."

With a little research, the LSU sports information department split the difference. They're calling Holliday the World's Fastest Football Player. Ever. They've got a point. Only 69 humans have run a faster 100 meters than Holliday's 10.02 posted in last year's NCAA track and field championships. None of those 69 were playing football at the time.

Only 12 college sprinters have run a faster 100 time than Holliday. None of them played college football. Mix in the fact that no high school athlete has run faster than 10.08 and Holliday is left with the football world title. We're talking about a better time than some pretty good sprinters who went on to make their name in football -- Olympian "Bullet" Bob Hayes and Heisman winner Herschel Walker.

All that without having reached his peak in either sport. Holliday was recruited as a football player but Shaver was involved in the process. Miles has promised an expanded role for Holliday, who ran for 364 yards and returned a kickoff for a touchdown last season.

"If someone were to leave their lane in track, it wouldn't bother him much," Miles said. "He would understand the collision."

Meanwhile, Shaver wonders how good the 160-pound Holliday could be if he were a full-time sprinter.

"I do know if we had him for a year-round program we could make some improvements in his mechanics," Shaver said. "If his legs were just a couple of inches longer, we would probably be writing about something else."

Hint: It would be conference, U.S. or maybe even world records more than football.

The dual threat should add some spice to this weekend's NCAA Mideast Regional in Fayetteville, Ark. Top-ranked LSU and Holliday will be the main topics of conversation -- much as they were in football five months ago in New Orleans.

As a 5-4, 140-pound high school sophomore, Holliday was a slotback at Northeast High in Zachary, La. When football recruiters began to inquire, Northeast coach David Masterson intentionally fudged on his player's 40 time. The colleges, he surmised, wouldn't believe this kid could run in the 4.2s.

Holliday got only three offers out of high school -- Southern, Southern Miss and LSU. Miles was intrigued by Holliday's numbers at an LSU high school camp. Wearing high-top basketball shoes, Holliday ran a 4.28 40. Asked to run it again, Holliday posted a 4.27 without even getting in a track stance. The only question left for Miles was whether the track speed could translate to football.

"He was always a football player," Miles said. "I can't imagine he loses any speed with pads on, I mean, at all. He's pretty damn exciting."

Assuming Holliday stays two more seasons, it's scary to think he could get faster. Already he has recorded 6.6 seconds in the 60 meters and 21.33 seconds in the 200. He finished second in the last year's NCAA outdoor (10.06) after running that personal-best 10.02 in a prelim. Miles would love to get fellow LSU sprinter Richard Thompson (9.93 in the 100) in a set of shoulder pads with Holliday.

"We're working on that right now," he said. "We're going to call that the 'Smoke' formation."

As in Holliday and Thompson leaving a cartoon vapor trail in their wake.

That's the thing about the WFFP. At 6-2, Thompson probably has more of a classic football body. It took him only 43¾ strides to run his 9.93. Holliday ran the 100 in 10.05 recently using 49½ strides. That equates to the same amount of strides by a female sprinter running a second slower, Shaver said. In other words, Holliday gets tremendous explosion out of that small body.

It's just that Holliday's body isn't classic for either sport. Shaver doubts that Holliday could turn pro as a sprinter. "He just doesn't have that kind of build that companies are going to make a huge investment in."

Despite his incredible speed, Miles says Holliday's size is a "serious issue." Not one that can't be overcome. There is precedent for the small guy. Doug Flutie did OK. Former Stanford star Troy Walters (5-8, 171) has lasted seven years in the NFL as a receiver/returner.

But what might trump the doubt is the kid's will. Two years ago at the SEC meet (also in Fayetteville), Holliday gamely raced with a high-ankle sprain. He finished 24th with a time of 11.01 in the 100. A lot of elite sprinters would have shut it down before they made it to the starting line. A lot of football players wouldn't have thought twice about playing through it.

Hey, maybe we finally found a label.

"He ran his guts out to run that fast," Shaver said.

Or was it Miles?