Dan Farthing knows the drill.
He is eminently qualified to discuss the CFL Combine, scheduled for Friday to Sunday in Regina, from technical and participatory perspectives.
In 1991, Farthing attended the Combine — then known as the evaluation camp — in preparation for the CFL Draft. The former University of Saskatchewan Huskies star slotback was ultimately selected in the first round by the Saskatchewan Roughriders, for whom he is now the Head of Strength and Conditioning.
“The information they’re hoping to glean from this is, ‘Will this particular prospect be able to produce on the field by measuring all these athletic attributes that describe those impact players on a football field?’ ” Farthing says.
“This has gone on for the longest time so, in some ways, there is a very legitimate capacity to compare, because these tests have not changed. These tests have been the same for a very long time. Players who do well on them may be able to improve their draft stock. Or, it could be lowered, depending on how they do.
“In some elements, the CFL Combine is a little bit more informative than the NFL Combine. There’s lots of hype around it and sponsors get on board with the NFL Combine in a big, big way, but they don’t really have any sort of one-on-one or team component to it where they’re actually challenging a player’s ability to show their football skill.
“I don’t know everything that has happened between ’91 and now, but the one-on-one component has always been a component of the CFL Combine. We were running routes on defensive backs back then, too, so scouts were able to see you do your thing — and I think there’s an importance to that.”
Individual and team drills will be accentuated on Saturday and Sunday at the AffinityPlex.
Friday’s agenda consists of testing in the 40-yard dash, three-cone drill, short shuttle, broad jump, vertical jump and bench press.
Beforehand, teams will have opportunities to interview prospects for the 2025 CFL Draft, to be held on April 29.
There was a scaled-down version of the Combine in 1991, when Farthing took part in a one-day event at the University of Alberta.
At the time, the Roughriders’ roster included two elite Canadian slotbacks (Ray Elgaard and Jeff Fairholm). Saskatchewan owned the fourth, fifth and eighth overall picks in the 1991 Draft and, at Combine time, it was reasonable to wonder if Farthing’s name would still be on the board when the Roughriders first had an opportunity to pick.
Any doubts evaporated, though, when then-General Manager Alan Ford traded the aforementioned two first-rounders to the B.C. Lions for the second overall selection. Farthing soon became a Roughrider.
Saskatchewan retained the fifth overall pick, which was used to claim offensive lineman Paul Vajda.
Over the next 11 seasons, Farthing caught 384 passes (fourth on the team’s All-Time list) for 5,097 yards (eighth).
Farthing, who was named the Roughriders’ Most Outstanding Canadian in 1997 and 2000, entered the SaskTel Plaza of Honour in 2009.
He returned to the organization in 2012 as the Strength and Conditioning Co-ordinator. His four seasons in that role were highlighted by a Grey Cup ring he earned as a member of the 2013 Roughriders.
The owner of Level 10 Fitness rejoined the Roughriders last year when he was hired as the Head of Strength and Conditioning.
The credentials are, and always have been, impeccable.
Farthing is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (with the National Strength and Conditioning Association) and a Certified Exercise Physiologist.
Additionally, he is a Consultant to the Canadian Sport Centre Saskatchewan and the Sport Medicine and Science Council of Saskatchewan.
At Level 10, Farthing has routinely worked with Draft-eligible players who have made it a priority to prepare for the Combine.
“You have to dial it in,” he states. “If you don’t dial it in, you’re not going to do well.
“You need to give the assessors what they want. It’s something you have to do.”
That entails a concentration on the finer aspects of every drill. Every step, every feint in one direction or another, can be critical when milliseconds matter.
But the Combine testing, as important as it is, cannot be the sole focus.
“In the NFL, because the Combine is restricted to the tests, there is a laser-focus on them for the period of time leading up into it,” Farthing says, “and with that, the laser-focus becomes a distraction from actually training for football.”
That is not said for the purpose of discounting the value of testing.
“When you find something empirical, it’s always nice,” Farthing says. “That can’t be harmful.
“Training for and performing those exercises — when you are working on it and dialling in — is a skill in and of itself. You are trying to become proficient at perfecting the steps and the turn and the touch and the swipe.”
There is the accompanying, bigger-picture imperative of preparing for the touchdowns and everything that follows the Combine and the Draft.
“You have to divide your time between preparing for the testing and the one-on-ones which, in my mind, is a good thing,” Farthing says. “If you laser-focus on the testing and then forget about the football side, then you have to re-start as you prepare for the actual football season.
“There’s a finite amount of training capacity that you have, so if you’re directing it all to one thing without paying attention to the other, you could be doing yourself a disservice.
“With duration of time between the NFL Combine and when players report to main camp, Draft- eligible players in the States can have that laser-focus on Combine prep and then shift gears and have an adequate amount of time to address football skills.
“With the CFL, there is so little time between the Combine, the Draft and rookie camp, so the fact that on-field, position-specific football skills are included in the Combine actually is of benefit.
“The Combine is a way to measure athletes relative to one another, but the ultimate test is training camp.”
