Guys come from well over 100+ schools every year just in D1 alone. They play wildly different schedules and competition levels. They also have unknown practice habits and attitudes that NFL teams can only guess at.
The combine puts them all on an even playing field for comparison's sake. Every team probably weighs it differently, but it is a useful tool to be able to tell if a guy is actually fast or just looked fast playing against Memphis or some other terrible team.
But to me the biggest thing the combine shows is professionalism. They are performing for future pay, just like they do in the NFL, and you get to see if they know how to train, prepare, and perform (in a basically non-football setting). If a guy is out of shape and unprepared at the combine he probably lacks the professionalism to be in-shape, prepared, and healthy in the NFL environment.
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