Dartmouth's Buddy Teevens has stopped all full contact hitting in practice for the varsity in order to cut down on concussions and other injuries.
Of course that's nothing, because Columbia's Pete Mangurian has already eliminated all blocking and tackling in the actual games.
5 comments:
Not a surprise. Teevens has been very active in concussion prevention education. He has advocates in the NFL and neurological surgeons on the issue.
It's a no win situation though. How do you play football without banging your helmets. The sport is built on that kind of violence.
So.
Here's the thing, folks.
With all the indisputable, along with the assumed (based upon observation as well as past performance) evidence of impending disaster and coaching incompetence, the question now arises: Is it time to stop hating on Mangurian?
You ask "Why?"
I say, we have buried this guy six ways from Sunday. How much more can be done? The raccoon has been run over by the semi at least 20 times. He is now a spot on the highway. Do we really need to continue?
My thought is simply this: How about 1) we wait for the season to start, 2) we focus on ongoing developments, 3) we look at other issues such as CU Admin, 4) we discuss other aspects of the FB team, 5) we look at other CU teams and aspects of their future endeavors.
Finally, instead of simple easy bitching, we discuss active actions we can deploy in September in terms of communicating discontent to the powers. Al suggestions are welcome. Bottom line, we can spend our time massaging ourselves, or we can spread the word.
It's a good idea to have no live tackling during in-season practices. This was always true even before the concussion worries. Maybe some minimal live tackling in pre-season but emphasis should be on form tackling drills. Some live blocking is probably ok because as Madden and others have pointed out rule changes have made football and especially line play a game of push and shove rather than the drive blocking and cut blocking of old.
It breaks my heart to say it but what you want today are simply the largest possible linemen. Players of the Billy Campbell era had perfect technique at 170 pounds but that has no value now when a 330 pound bartender can stand there in a two point stance and is allowed to use his hands.
There really is no need for full contact practices if you're got players who like to hit and if you don't have those players full contact practices won't help anyway. In 2014 you can't and shouldn't Bear Bryant a kid into becoming a snarling animal so the hell with it.
Mitch S. 68CC
Big Dawg has as usual nailed it. If only for the sake of those kids who are sacrificing their summers by working out together at the Campbell Center, let's give it a rest. Mangurian surely knows that he has to deliver this season, win a few games, and show real progress, or he joins the ranks of the prematurely retired.
There's literally nothing I can write or post that won't look like I'm bashing Mangurian. I was thinking of just talking stats, but we just posted the worst statistical season in Ivy history. I was thinking of focusing on our best returning players, but we have just one returning Honorable Mention All Ivy player returning. I was thinking of looking at our opponents for a few weeks, but that makes Mangurian look terrible by contrast and will show why we're so very far behind. The house has burned down, so it's really hard to discuss the style of the curtains.
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