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Big 12 Restricts Live Contact Opportunities
July 21, 2015 01:23 PM | Football
DALLAS – The days of college football players beating on each other during practice are long gone.
We were served another reminder of that Monday when the Big 12 Conference announced the league is restricting live contact opportunities to only two days a week during the regular season.
The limit goes into effect at the beginning of this season and will include game days, meaning teams will have only one other opportunity for full contact (typically Tuesdays for most teams) during the week.
Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby explained the conference’s stance on its new contact policy.
“What we determined was our guys weren’t using (the permitted contact days) anyway,” he said. “So I don’t think they feel like they’re giving up anything.”
Since he’s been at West Virginia, coach Dana Holgorsen has never used more than one full-contact day during the week during the season to get his team prepared for game day. That is a common practice throughout college football.
“You’ve got to protect the kids as much as you possibly can, but you can’t lose sight of the fact that it’s a physical game,” Holgorsen said.
Old-school Kansas State coach Bill Snyder began his career in the 1960s during an era when it was common for players to hit every day and do things such as refuse water and keep their helmets on as a means for determining toughness.
But today Snyder’s Kansas State teams hit only once a week during the regular season like everyone else.
“It will not affect us because the rule defined as it is in place right now - and we’ve had discussions of it in our conference meetings - is identical to what our needs are,” he said. “So it doesn’t alter anything that we have done. I like the way we do our practices and we’ve been doing them the same way for a long time.”
TCU’s defensive-oriented head coach Gary Patterson said he has no problem with the new policy.
“It’s easy for us,” he said. “Just on Tuesday – that’s the only day we’re in full pads besides the game. Everybody always looks surprised at me because we’re physical. Sunday we’re in shorts. Tuesday we’re in full. Wednesday we’re in shells. Thursday we’re in shorts – we’ve been that way really since we’ve been at TCU.”
Patterson said it’s necessary to do this because of the demanding nature of the college game today with supremely conditioned athletes that are much bigger, faster and stronger than they were just a couple decades ago.
“In this league you’ve got to be able to pull up because of the bodies, and you’ve got to be able to get guys through the end of the season,” he explained. “I think what you’ll find is you’ll find that there’s a majority of coaches - there’s a false sense of we just try to bang our kids around, but I think all of us … we like keeping our jobs and we want to keep our kids healthy. We’ve all been like that.”
There is a misconception that the style of play today has removed much of the physical element from the game. That couldn’t be further from the truth, says Holgorsen.
“Everybody wants to say, well, we’re going to go to the spread offense and be soft. You go to a spread offense and you’re soft – you’re going to get your butt kicked,” he said. “You’ve got to maintain a physical nature because it’s a physical game.
“They can curb it from practice time a little bit, but if you curb (physical play) out on the game field you’re not going to be successful. I just think you’ve got to be able to find that balance, and you’ve got to be able to do as much contact and much teaching these guys the proper techniques and the proper mentality, which is being tough. If you don’t do that, you’re not going to win.”
“I’ve just felt like the body types are getting so big, so strong and so fast, I think it’s just important that you make sure that you get all of your guys to game day and keep them healthy,” added Patterson. “That’s been our mindset for a long time – the best teams (and healthiest) play at the end of the year.”
In conclusion, Bowlsby said the live contact policy adopted by the Big 12 is very similar to what the NFL uses today.
“The NFL has a rule that they only have 11 days of contact after the completion of their preseason camp,” he said. “If they can get by on 11 days, we can certainly get by on twice that.”
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