How fast is Austin Collie?

Well, that's something of a joke among his teammates for the past six months because on the field, when geared up from head to toe, Collie is blazing quick.

He runs precision routes with little or no wasted motion.

He explodes off the line and can get deep and open in defensive secondaries.

He's as good a hawk as any receiver BYU has ever had with the ball in the air.

And he's closing in on passing many of the legendary names in the school's record book.

But there was a day this past June, when Collie wore nothing but shorts, a flimsy shirt and shoes and socks, that he ran the 40-yard dash in something more than 4.6 seconds — a mark considered a bit slow or average.

It was a 40 time that is unacceptable to Collie. He knows he's faster than the clock showed. And true, hand-held 40 times can vary as much as half a second and are not considered all that accurate.

Still, it bugs Collie. "I'm a low-4.5 guy."

Really?

"We always kind of make fun of him because he didn't run the 40 time he wanted to run," said BYU quarterback Max Hall.

"He feels like he's a 4.4 guy; he's Austin. But he runs just as fast as a 4.4 guy with pads on when on the field, and that's what makes him special. He's tough, he's big, he's strong, and then when he gets his pads on, he doesn't change or slow down. If anything, he might get faster because he's in game mode."

And that's called football speed, something Collie definitely possesses.

"I'm not a 4.6 guy," said Collie. "It was just one day. It all depends. I can run in the low 4.5s. I know I didn't test that. At the time, I was weighing 209 to 210, and now I'm 197. That's a huge difference."

Regardless of what the clock says, few will argue Collie stands out on the football field when the ball is in the air. It is so in practice, and it's been that way since he earned MWC freshman of the year honors in 2004 before serving an LDS mission to Argentina.

Collie currently ranks No. 7 in the NCAA in receiving yards per game (103 ypg), just ahead of teammate Dennis Pitta (102 ypg) at No. 11.

He is five catches from tying Todd Christensen (152 catches) at No. 8 on BYU's all-time receiving list.

That BYU list is full of running backs and tight ends. Only three wide receivers rank higher than Collie — Eric Drage, Phil Odle and Margin Hooks — and the junior, barring injury, will surpass them all by the end of his career.

On the field, Collie may be faster than any of those on that list.

"It's game speed. I think it's a whole lot different on a clock than it is in a game. One day it said I'm a 4.6," Collie said. "That is what the clock said that day. I know I'm faster than that.