And so it begins: Get ready for "tag" football.

Redwood Forrest · Mar 1, 2016

The eight teams in the Ivy League will no longer tackle during football practices after coaches voted unanimously to eliminate all full-contact hitting last week.

According to The New York Times, the move will be adopted officially once affirmed by the league's athletic directors, school presidents and policy committee.

This is the most radical step taken by any league towards reducing the contact players take during practice. Ivy League team Dartmouth eliminated full-contact hitting in practice back in 2010 and has been on the forefront of the safety wave with the introduction of a robotic tackling dummy that allows players to still hit but do so without the same dangers of player-on-player contact.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefoo...gue-eliminates-tackling-in-football-practices

This is only the beginning. Soon no more kickoffs, just place the ball on the 25 yd line. Then no more punt rerurns, take the ball at the nearest 10 yd marker of where it went out of bounds, or rolled dead. Or something like that. Then no hitting the reciever while he is in the air. Get the drift?

AlexanderFan · Mar 2, 2016

Ok, I'll be the villain. While I realize football is a completely voluntary sport and is inherently dangerous, why shouldn't we take every precaution to limit the long term effect of the sport on the people who play it?

As a side note, this is the Ivy League. Most of those players aren't going to pursue football at the next level and protecting their brain from long term damage is probably in their best interests.

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bat123 · Mar 2, 2016

Well after all this is the Ivy league the don't hit in the first place "Come on man"

Relayer · Mar 2, 2016

I know it's fun to make fun of the Ivy Leaguers, but, doesn't Bama already do something similar? "Thud" instead of tackling, or is that different.

Con · Mar 2, 2016

Relayer said:
I know it's fun to make fun of the Ivy Leaguers, but, doesn't Bama already do something similar? "Thud" instead of tackling, or is that different.

That is what I thought. Coach Saban doesn't like the runners to be taken down to the ground during practice.

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ROTYDE · Mar 2, 2016

I have trouble understanding how there are more injuries now, when we have better equipment and training than ever before. I wonder if we are just better at finding the injuries due to the advancement in medicine. In the old days a barefooted player with a leather helmet would fight to the death. Now we dress out like Iron man and have more injuries that ever. just makes me think..

B1GTide · Mar 2, 2016

I suspect that this was and is necessary for football to survive as a sport at these schools. As was said earlier in this thread, most of these players have career aspirations that have nothing to do with football, and which will not leverage their football playing days in any way. Their time spent at these schools, and the relationships that they build while there, are far more important than football, so why not minimize injury risk?

If the NCAA tries to implements this across the board, they would lose the P5 conferences - schools with players that still have professional sports aspirations.

B1GTide · Mar 2, 2016

ROTYDE said:
I have trouble understanding how there are more injuries now, when we have better equipment and training than ever before. I wonder if we are just better at finding the injuries due to the advancement in medicine. In the old days a barefooted player with a leather helmet would fight to the death. Now we dress out like Iron man and have more injuries that ever. just makes me think..

Because players are bigger, stronger and faster. Add the effect that the equipment has of making a player feel invincible and you have players making contact with a lot more force today than was experienced in the "leather helmet" days.

capnfrog · Mar 2, 2016

ROTYDE said:
I have trouble understanding how there are more injuries now, when we have better equipment and training than ever before. I wonder if we are just better at finding the injuries due to the advancement in medicine. In the old days a barefooted player with a leather helmet would fight to the death. Now we dress out like Iron man and have more injuries that ever. just makes me think..

Players are now bigger, faster, stronger and have a better technique to bring you down.

dayhiker · Mar 2, 2016

B1GTide said:
Because players are bigger, stronger and faster. Add the effect that the equipment has of making a player feel invincible and you have players making contact with a lot more force today than was experienced in the "leather helmet" days.

And do we actually have more injuries than ever?

mdb-tpet · Mar 2, 2016

dayhiker said:
And do we actually have more injuries than ever?

I doubt there are more injuries, but I'm sure there are more serious injuries. And just know a lot more about the injuries kids have and how to treat them. Remember there were nearly zero 300+ lbs linemen in the 70s. Plus, we've come a long way from the Vince Lombardi days.

The Ols · Mar 2, 2016

True...but haven't there been studies that show that lack of tackling promotes bad habits and in turn more injuries in game situation due to poor technique?
I'm asking, not stating that...

AlexanderFan said:
Ok, I'll be the villain. While I realize football is a completely voluntary sport and is inherently dangerous, why shouldn't we take every precaution to limit the long term effect of the sport on the people who play it?

As a side note, this is the Ivy League. Most of those players aren't going to pursue football at the next level and protecting their brain from long term damage is probably in their best interests.

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B1GTide · Mar 2, 2016

dayhiker said:
And do we actually have more injuries than ever?

That is likely an unanswerable question, and it probably doesn't matter. Our society is different. We care more about our quality of life now than at any point in history.

Rush · Mar 2, 2016

AlexanderFan said:
Ok, I'll be the villain. While I realize football is a completely voluntary sport and is inherently dangerous, why shouldn't we take every precaution to limit the long term effect of the sport on the people who play it?

As a side note, this is the Ivy League. Most of those players aren't going to pursue football at the next level and protecting their brain from long term damage is probably in their best interests.

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Well, given what so many Ivy Leaguers end up doing to the country once they graduate and end up in public office, I'm not sure that a few raps to the head in their ideologically formative years would be such a bad thing...

dayhiker · Mar 2, 2016

B1GTide said:
That is likely an unanswerable question, and it probably doesn't matter. Our society is different. We care more about our quality of life now than at any point in history.

I was just pointing out that the line of discussion was centered on there being more injuries with better equipment, but we may not actually have more injuries.

RTR91 · Mar 2, 2016

dayhiker said:
And do we actually have more injuries than ever?

Probably not. We're just more aware of the injuries when they happen thanks to the more media. Plus, the heightened awareness to injuries leads to teams being more cautious with an injury a player might typically play through.

CrimsonNagus · Mar 2, 2016

B1GTide said:
I suspect that this was and is necessary for football to survive as a sport at these schools. As was said earlier in this thread, most of these players have career aspirations that have nothing to do with football, and which will not leverage their football playing days in any way. Their time spent at these schools, and the relationships that they build while there, are far more important than football, so why not minimize injury risk?

Okay, if that is such a huge concern then maybe the Ivy League shouldn't be playing football at all. If they are so smart then why do they continue to play a sport that might jeopardize their future career aspiration?

Bamabuzzard · Mar 2, 2016

I think over the next 10-15 years we're going to see the youth league football concept near extinct or completely extinct. Maybe Displaced Bama Fan can confirm this but on our local news (Shreveport, LA) a few weeks ago there was a segment on community centers (i.e. YMCA's etc.) doing away with tackle football in Texas for kids under the middle school age. Youth league tackle football around our area has been diminishing for ten years. Fewer and fewer parents are letting their kids play tackle football. There are more and more flag football leagues popping up.

On a personal level we have decided not to let our oldest son play tackle until middle school. We feel his body simply isn't ready. As a Dad I want him to learn the technical aspects of the game (catching, footwork, throwing, etc.)

B1GTide · Mar 2, 2016

RollTide1017 said:
Okay, if that is such a huge concern then maybe the Ivy League shouldn't be playing football at all. If they are so smart then why do they continue to play a sport that might jeopardize their future career aspiration?

They do not play the same "brand" of college football that you see in the SEC. It is more like a club level sport for them. They continue it because it still has club level interest.

Bamabuzzard · Mar 2, 2016

RollTide1017 said:
Okay, if that is such a huge concern then maybe the Ivy League shouldn't be playing football at all. If they are so smart then why do they continue to play a sport that might jeopardize their future career aspiration?

They love the competitiveness of the game (most guys are super competitive by nature) and don't want to stop playing the game altogether. So they are willing to make adjustments to the game and obviously do not mind sacrificing quality on some level.

Power 5 conferences have to be REAL careful in the changes they make for the sake of "safety" to not impact the quality of the game on the field and not to mess with the element of physicality that is a huge draw for fans. The Ivy league doesn't have to worry about this.

And so it begins: Get ready for "tag" football.

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