The Relationship Between Offseason Testing and Game Performance of Division I Collegiate Football Players

Abstract

Offseason football strength programs consist of three distinct areas of training: speed/agility/quickness (SAQ); strength/power; and flexibility. These areas have been predetermined to be of most relation to football (Sawyer, Ostarello, Suess, & Dempsey, 2002). The results of these tests determine which players are the best athletes, subsequently labeling them with the potential to be the best football players. Personal football experience has revealed that excellent players may not test well and excellent testers may not perform well in games. It was hypothesized that offseason testing results would not be strongly related to game performance, but the 40-yard dash and the vertical jump would be the best indicators of how players perform. The purpose of this research was to examine the relationship between offseason testing results and game performance of Division I Collegiate Football players. The football strength staff at East Carolina gave a test battery to the players during the offseason. This study used the data collected to form correlations with game performance from the 2016 East Carolina Football season. Each category of testing was evaluated to determine if certain tests are better indicators of game performance than others. The research focused on a specific position group, defensive backs, in order to improve reliability of results. The hypothesis was not fully supported because the vertical jump produced a strong correlation to game performance (r = 0.76), rejecting the first part of the hypothesis that no offseason test would strongly correlate. The second part of the hypothesis was supported because the vertical jump was the best indicator of game performance. The data suggests previous literature was correct in providing an indication of the results from which the vertical jump test was the strongest correlated offseason test with game performance. The broad jump and flexibility were tests that produced moderate correlations. Z-scores were calculated for all player testing to provide a normalized indication of athletic performance. These correlations could be specific to the defensive back position and other position groups may yield different results.