NCFCA/NCHSAA Sports Medicine Advisory Committee’s New Spring and Fall Football Contact Rules:Lots Less Full Contact and Tackling

Post content setup coming in from David Kehrli, at the Burlington Times-News, and quotes highlighted and featured from/by Tra Waters, with the North Carolina High School Athletic Association….

We put the format together for you here at GreensboroSports.com, as these issues got our attention, and the more we studied these contact and tackling regulations, the more we felt like you should be seeing them….

At one point you will see, the high school football players will be limited to 15 minutes of Full Contact per week…And that includes offensive and defensive full-contact drills too…

That old song, “You’re the Reason God Made Oklahoma” will have to be put on hold…Oklahoma will have to pretty much become a thing of the past….You can’t spend your whole week of just 15 minutes of LIVE contact with those Oklahoma Drills….

You will have to put that 15 minutes of LIVE contact to good use, and probably reserve it to Scrimmage time, say on Tuesday, or Wednesday…Or just use your LIVE contact time for group work, so you can tone up/touch up your hits….

On Tuesday and Wednesday, when you are doing and showing the opponents offenses and defenses, you will have to look to do ALL walk throughs…

There seems to be more of a limiting of Full Contact, with each upcoming New Season…..

^^^^^^^^^^Here’s how things are looking, going into the New 2020 High School Football Season^^^^^^^^^^
The new joint proposal between the North Carolina Football Coaches Association and the NCHSAA’s Sports Medicine Advisory Committee includes four parts, most notably allowing for a total of 60 minutes of full-speed drills up until the moment of full contact from April 15 until the last 10 student days of the semester.

The rule allows for teams to go through drills in a game-like condition before stopping short of making forceable contact.

“For example, you run a toss play outside, the running back gets 10 yards downfield, the safety comes across, he gets his body in the correct position, but then he tags him on his hip and he runs by,” said Tra Waters, assistant commissioner of sports and championships for the NCHSAA. “Or he slows down and wraps him up then the drill ends. Nobody is taken to the ground and there’s no forceful contact that occurs.”

Waters said football coaches asked for the rule in order to better evaluate their players heading into the summer.

“They asked for this because they were getting situations where we’ve allowed them to hold pads and they weren’t quite getting the mechanics down,” Waters said. “As they discussed with the Sports Medicine Advisory Committee, they felt that this was a safer alternative than holding a pad because if you’re holding a pad during practice, and somebody hits you full speed, you don’t have your hands for leverage, you can fall backwards, and they felt those types of drills might make it safer.”

In the preseason, from the first day of fall sports practice until Monday of the opening game week, teams are limited to 15 minutes of live-action contact per position group per day.

**********During the regular season, teams are limited to 15 minutes of live-action contact per position group per week.**********
(That’s 15 minutes of live-action contact per position group per week.)

++++++++++Live-action contact is defined as “full-speed drills / scrimmages between offense and defense where players are taken to the ground,” similar to what occurs in games, Waters said.++++++++++

Scrimmage hours were reduced from seven to five, with a required 48 hours in between scrimmages, but not including jamborees.

$$$$$$$$$$ As far as we can tell, Full Contact will still be allowed for the FULL duration of each high school football game each week…That will be FULL Contact for the full 48 minutes, with the four 12 minute quarters….This may start giving the high school football players something to look forward to….Wow, we finally get the chance to HIT and it is all legal, all night long, on Friday nights….Friday Night Lights and Friday Night Sights….$$$$$$$$$$