Or at least that’s what Jonathan Chait would say, given that he debunked the speed myth six years ago:

Like many myths, this one contains a bit of truth. Southern teams play outside their region only during two parts of the year: in September nonconference games, and in the bowls. Since the former take place when it’s warm everywhere, and the latter almost always take place in a warm-weather climate, that means Southern college football teams, unlike their NFL counterparts, never play in cold weather. As a result, many of them play a more wide-open, pass-oriented style than Northern teams, which need players and systems that can succeed in the snow as well as in the sun. So, while the Southern style of football certainly looks faster, that doesn’t mean that the players actually run faster. After all, the few Northern teams that run wide-open spread offenses—such as Purdue and Northwestern—look fast, too.

Southern teams and their fans have perpetuated the myth by making a fetish of their recruits’ dazzling 40-yard dash times—which have become as much a part of the culture of hard-core college football fans as batting averages are to baseball fans. But the 40-yard dash times reported by players and coaches, alas, are notoriously unreliable, since both have an incentive to exaggerate. The only objective measure available for college athletes is the electronic timing performed by pro scouts at the NFL Draft Combine. Casey Calder, an Internet college football analyst, compared the times of skill position players from Northern schools versus those who played in the South. He found that wide receivers from Northern schools actually outran their Southern counterparts: The Northerners, on average, ran the 40 in 4.502 seconds, while the Southerners ran it in 4.548. Southern and Northern cornerbacks finished in a virtual dead heat, 4.535 to 4.555, respectively.

Or consider high-school 100-meter dash times. I looked at the 10 fastest times posted by high-school runners over the last two years in two states, Michigan and Florida. The Florida average was slightly faster, 10.77 seconds versus 10.78. But the two fastest Michigan runners, Kelly Baraka and Charles Rogers, outpaced anybody from Florida. Both, by the way, play Big 10 football.