Ivy League Moves to Eliminate Tackling at Football Practices

[Tango Two]

Interesting stance:


Ivy League football coaches have decided to take the extraordinary step of eliminating all full-contact hitting from practices during the regular season, the most aggressive measure yet to combat growing concerns about brain trauma and other injuries in the sport.


http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/03/0...moves-to-eliminate-tackling-at-practices.html

 

[Abro1975]

Most colleges in D1 do the same since they reduced scholarships to 85. Too much risk of injury. They use 'thud' technique instead.

 

[vkj91]

Most colleges in D1 do the same since they reduced scholarships to 85. Too much risk of injury. They use 'thud' technique instead.

No they don't. Teams definitely limit full tackling but most still have one day a week where they get after it. This will eliminate taking guys to the ground for the entire season. I spoke to a HS coach about this yesterday and he said recently a team announced they were doing this and that year They were the worst in tackling in the country. I'm waiting for the link.....that being said, it doesn't bother me as much in HS because these guys should know how to tackle. Problem is there will be a trickle down and parents will push for less and less contact. Kids will not learn proper fundamentals and we will end up with more injuries. Even now with "heads of tackling" the limits USA football puts on contact is a bit extreme

 

[RU62]

Once the regular season starts most teams will cut down or full scale scrimmages to reduce body wear. We did this many years ago under Bateman and Burns but you do need some occasional hitting to see who can fo the job whether it be for lineman or even secondary people in terms of tackling. Once of the problems regarding injuries is how colleges have gone from a 9/10 game regular season to 12+ games. Of course there will then statically be more injuries. All of this for one major readon...potential $$$ put out there by the networks etc and which has escalated the expenses for staff and training personnel. Colleges have become part of football and not football a part of college. In essence the game has often been taken away from the colleges and the colleges unfortunately have no one to blame but themselves. Perhaps the Ivies may be on the right track but unfortunately it's hard for the train to now slow down. The NCAA and many college presidents have been hypocrites in their actions.

 

[RU1977]

Can't they wear those fake sumo wrestling outfits and tackle? Might be fun.

 

[Abro1975]

No they don't. Teams definitely limit full tackling but most still have one day a week where they get after it. This will eliminate taking guys to the ground for the entire season. I spoke to a HS coach about this yesterday and he said recently a team announced they were doing this and that year They were the worst in tackling in the country. I'm waiting for the link.....that being said, it doesn't bother me as much in HS because these guys should know how to tackle. Problem is there will be a trickle down and parents will push for less and less contact. Kids will not learn proper fundamentals and we will end up with more injuries. Even now with "heads of tackling" the limits USA football puts on contact is a bit extreme

I asked this exact question to Flood during one of his call in shows from Brother Jimmies, he replied that after summer practices are over, they do no live practice tackling during the season for risk of injury. Later I heard Bret Bielema talking on Sirius w Rick Neuheisel not only say the same thing, but say he doesn't know of any other coaches who do live tackling during practice during the regular season either. I'm sure there must be some outliers. It's not a hard rule or policy yet. I do know in the NFL it is a hard rule they can only have live tackling once a week, but with such limited numbers n their rosters, I doubt they do it much at all anyway.

 

[wicker]

Many schools have also eliminated it during games

 

[zappaa]

This will probably result in more catastophic injuries.
Typical of our frenzied over the top society to over correct.

 

[mdk01]

I wonder if this is related to the MVP (mobile virtual player) developed by Dartmouth engineering students and introduced this past season.

http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/28/dartmouth-football-tackling-robot/

 

[PSU_Nut]

No they don't. Teams definitely limit full tackling but most still have one day a week where they get after it. This will eliminate taking guys to the ground for the entire season. I spoke to a HS coach about this yesterday and he said recently a team announced they were doing this and that year They were the worst in tackling in the country. I'm waiting for the link.....that being said, it doesn't bother me as much in HS because these guys should know how to tackle. Problem is there will be a trickle down and parents will push for less and less contact. Kids will not learn proper fundamentals and we will end up with more injuries. Even now with "heads of tackling" the limits USA football puts on contact is a bit extreme

They don't go full contact during the season. It is very rare these day. After camp it is basically all thud. Thud actually requires a player to get in position to make a play rather then just diving at the guy's legs or grabbing jersey. John Gagliardi won 489 games and 4 national championships and his team had no contact in practice.

 

[MozRU]

Just playing DII back in the 90s, come the regular season, we rarely tackled.

On Wednesday's Live thud/hit in the trenches, two hand touch when it came to RBs, TEs, WRs, LBs and DBs in the open field.

Come Saturday we had NO problem turning it up. You don't forget how to tackle dudes.

 

[seels2662]

RUTGERS will be in the forefront of preventing these concussion issues by teaching rugby style tackling, Ash's specialty

 

[retired711]

RUTGERS will be in the forefront of preventing these concussion issues by teaching rugby style tackling, Ash's specialty

My concern (and I think Zappaa's) is that the players need practice at tackling safely, and so I'm not sure barring contact at practice is the best way to go. But it is interesting how many schools seem to have come close to the Ivy League's position.

 

[vkj91]

RUTGERS will be in the forefront of preventing these concussion issues by teaching rugby style tackling, Ash's specialty

Rugby style tackling doesn't do squat for concussion. Maybe not squat but it's minimal. Rugby style comes into play when LB's are scraping to the edge. It does nothing regarding collisions over the middle or safeties flying up on run support.

 

[zappaa]

Rugby style tackling doesn't do squat for concussion. Maybe not squat but it's minimal. Rugby style comes into play when LB's are scraping to the edge. It does nothing regarding collisions over the middle or safeties flying up on run support.

Take the face mask off the helmet for practice only.