Daniel Uthman

USA TODAY Sports

EUGENE, Ore. — John Burt is not sure what factors led five current or former Football Bowl Subdivision wide receivers or defensive backs to make the 110-meter hurdles field at the NCAA Division I men’s track and field championships this week.

“When you think about football players running track, usually it's the 100 or the 200 where it's just straight running,” said Burt, a freshman wide receiver and hurdler for the University of Texas. “I never really thought about why so many football players run the 110 hurdles. It's not like you're really jumping over a lot of people in football.”

Hurdles on the football field are rare and impressive enough that they elicit wonder from stadium crowds and gifs from those watching at home. But the fact is that the football players who will step on the track for the men’s 110 hurdles this week — Burt, Oregon redshirt sophomore Devon Allen, Alabama junior Tony Brown, LSU junior Jordan Moore (formerly a TCU running back) and Cal sophomore Ashtyn Davis — do leave their feet as part of their duties on the football field. And when they do so, it is to accomplish a completely different task: run, time the jump, catch, intercept or deflect it and keep running at maximum speed.

In hurdling, they run, time the jump, execute the jump and repeat at maximum speed.

“I guess it takes more coordination, which being a receiver is obviously very important having to focus on the ball, catch it, and hold onto it,” Burt said. “I guess the coordination, hand eye, that sort of thing, I guess those parts kind of overlap.”

College football players such as USC two-way player Adoree Jackson and Arizona State wide receiver Tim White are among the top four seeds in the long and triple jump, respectively, this week, but the football-track overlap at this meet is nowhere more pronounced than in the 110 hurdles, where more than one in five seeds have college football experience. Following in the footsteps of Tennessee’s Willie Gault, who was a key wide receiver for the Super Bowl champion Chicago Bears, and Jabari Greer, who played 10 seasons of defensive back with the Buffalo Bills and New Orleans Saints, this group has performed at the highest collegiate level in both disciplines.

Burt is actually the lowest seeded of the quintet, having run a 13.91 on May 28 at the NCAA West Prelims, but he led the Longhorns with 457 receiving yards last fall, starting every game of his freshman season. Allen has 50 receptions for 778 yards and seven touchdowns in two seasons with the Ducks’ football team to go with two NCAA championships, two All-American nods and a U.S. championship in the 110 hurdles.

Brown, a 2013 American Family All-USA second team honoree, has had two up-and-down seasons with the Alabama football team but enters the NCAA championships as No. 5 seed in the hurdles. The No. 6 seed, Moore, played special teams or running back in 34 games for TCU from 2012-14 and won a Big 12 outdoor title in the 110 hurdles before joining LSU this season. Moore’s coach with the Tigers, Dennis Shaver, said Thursday that Moore’s competitive football mentality has contributed to his and the LSU team’s success this season.

“I feel like his best races are in front of him,” Shaver said. “He’s a great team guy.”

Davis is the only member of the group who already was on his college campus before adding football as an intercollegiate pursuit, joining the Bears team after a walk-on tryout in spring 2015.

Burt and Allen chose their schools partly based on assurances they could compete in both sports, and that has been the case. After football season, Burt spent Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays with the track team and Tuesdays and Thursdays with football, gravitating a bit more to football around the Longhorns’ spring game. His hurdle time dropped nearly a half-second between January and May, and he earned a berth in the NCAA championships.

“I’m pretty sure they’re obviously happy with that,” said Burt, who will join quarterback-receiver workouts back in Austin next week. “With the amount of time that I had to train and prepare, basically I missed out on the fall training aspect.”

Allen attended meetings with the Ducks football team this spring, but his head coach Mark Helfrich and position coach-turned-offensive coordinator Matt Lubick were happy to give him the clearance to focus on the college track season and his attempt to qualify for the Summer Olympics at the U.S. Trials held here in July.

“His No. 1 goal right now is to go to the Olympics,” Lubick said. “I would never bet against that guy to not only make the Olympics but to do something there.

Whenever we can get him back, we’ll be jacked, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

When it comes to experience, statistics and accomplishments in both sports, Allen leads this pack. He also has a clear theory why football players are able to make the transition from a fall season of running across white painted lines to a winter and spring of running between them. It begins, Allen said, with the fact that defensive backs and wide receivers especially have strong and flexible hips.

“I think it just kind of correlates,” said Allen, who ran against Brown, Alabama teammate Marlon Humphrey and former Florida State cornerback Ronald Darby as a youth. “A lot of guys run fast 100s, too, but I think it’s a little bit easier to convert the athleticism from football back into hurdling instead of sprints. When you’re doing sprints, unless you’re like De’Anthony Thomas or one of those guys that can just fly, it’s kind of hard to get back into a season and run some fast times.

“I think the hurdles is the kind of event that you can jump in coming off football season, train a little bit, get some flexibility and hit it. It’s rhythm. You have to have quick in between, but it’s rhythm, and I think playing football helps those athletes be mobile and flexible and explosive — all the aspects you need in hurdles.”

NCAA outdoor track and field championships

When: Wednesday-Saturday

Where: Eugene, Ore.

On TV (times Eastern)

Wednesday: ESPN2, 7:30 p.m.

Thursday: ESPNU, 7:30 p.m.

Friday: ESPN, 8:30 p.m.

Saturday: ESPN, 6:30 p.m.