Tackling to be banned at Ivy League football practices

Football players playing just as hard, but a little bit smarter

Coaches from all eight Ivies have agreed on a rule change that would ban tackling and “all full-contact hitting” during football practice, according to the NY Times.

Though the coaches are onboard, the rule change must still be approved by the league’s athletic directors and policy committee, and the university presidents.

The league is taking Dartmouth’s lead, whose head coach Buddy Teevens eliminated tackling in 2010 “to reduce injuries, including concussions, that kept players out of games and wore them down over the course of a season,” and introduced “hit pads and tackling dummies,” like the “mobile virtual player” that moves around a field just like any other player.

And don’t think for a second that Dartmouth players have softened up. Not only have they learned to tackle while avoiding head collisions, but “their number of missed tackles in games has fallen by more than half,” as well.

Increased safety measures are nothing new to the Ivy League. In 2011, we went above and beyond NCAA rules by cutting down the number of full-contact practices each team could hold.

And the research support these rule changes is huge, showing they significantly prevent head injuries of all kinds, most notably concussions, that have severely affected players and led to recent settlements in the NFL.

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