Football practice begins with new hitting rules

The countdown to kickoff officially begins on Saturday.

With the calendar turning to August, high school football practice – and practices for other fall sports – begins in earnest.

While teams have been working throughout the summer in weight rooms and in their allotted 10 on-field sessions, with the arrival of Aug. 1 comes the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s recognition of the start of football.

But as teams get out their balls and dust off the shoulders pads, coaches have to acquaint themselves with a new set of rules and guidelines passed down by the OHSAA in regards to hitting in practices.

“I think most of us saw this coming,” Oak Harbor coach Mike May said. “Colleges put some limitations on (contact) and I don’t think it’s a bad thing. It’s the same for everybody, it just changes the structure a little bit.”

On July 13, the OHSAA issued a press release stating it had adopted recommendations from the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) Concussion Summit Task Force in an effort to reduce the risk of concussions and head impact exposure.

While some of the NFHS’ recommendations were already in place by the OHSAA, such as the need for a physical before an athlete participates, no contact or shoulder pads any time outside of the season and a five-day acclimatization period prior to starting contact drills.

A few regulations, however, are new to the OHSAA and area coaches are still figuring out the effect they’ll have on how he likes to run practice.

“We’ll change a little bit, I think everybody kind of has to,” Port Clinton coach Beau Carmon said. “There’s no point of making a big deal out of it because you don’t have a choice. You have to go with it and adjust like the game of football is anyways and make the best of it.”

Among the changes is a limitation on contact during preseason two-a-day practices. Full contact will be allowed during only one practice session per day and athletes should not do contract drills in an evening session and again the following morning, to allow for more recovery time.

After the first game, scheduled for the week of Aug. 24, players are limited to 30 minutes of full contact per day, 60 minutes of contact per week and no more than two full-contact practices in a seven-day period.

Clyde coach Ryan Carter said he took no issue with the new regulations but did wish they provided more clarity on what was allowed and what’s not.

“Contact, to you, might mean full-contact, full scrimmage, tackling, take-you-to-the-ground. That’s what I think of too,” Carter said. “But are we supposed to interpret the state thinks it’s coming off the ball hitting but with a quick whistle. Is that full contact? We just needed some clarification and some answers.”

While the measures are being taken with the interest of the athlete’s safety, is the OHSAA giving enough time for coaches to adequately instruct proper hitting technique, without which injuries can become even more frequent and dangerous?

“It’s six of one, half-dozen of the other, I feel,” Carter said. “The reason all these rules, in my opinion, are coming down the pipeline are because of concussions and head injuries. If you don’t have enough hitting time to properly instruct a kid how to tackle, aren’t you causing the same problem?

“I played college football, I understand what it is to play four hours a day and beat your head up against somebody else and that’s not good for our kids, either,” he added. “But you’ve got to be able to instruct them how to do it for long enough to teach them how to do it.”

rmcgowan@gannett.com

419-334-1043

Twitter: @RMcGowan