NCAA Division 1 Football Oversight Committee Recommends Tweaks to Current Fall Camp Structure
Preseason practice changes are coming to college football.
On Thursday, the NCAA Division 1 Football Oversight Committee recommended to tweak certain issues pertaining to the lead up of the season in order to prevent unwanted injuries on the practice field.
The group that helped come up with the changes included members of the Football Oversight Committee, Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports and the American Football Coaches Association board of directors.
The recommended changes include:
- Prohibiting drills that create unneeded contact, particularly straight-line contact that is not common to the game.
- Reducing the maximum number of contact practices from 21 to 18, requiring at least seven helmet-only days (with optional spider pads) and restricting full-pads days to nine.
- Increasing the acclimatization period from five to seven days.
- Additional limits on full-contact practices, including no more than two consecutive full-contact practices, a total of no more than 75 minutes of full contact within any practice session and no more than two scrimmages in the preseason.
“The challenge in creating this model was to balance the need for a reduction in contact with preparing student-athletes properly to play a football season,” Utah athletics director Mark Harlan said. “The framework achieves this and allows coaches appropriate freedom and flexibility.”
Teams can begin practicing 29 days before its first contest of 2021. There is a limit of 25 practices for each squad. The NCAA Division 1 Council will consider these changes on May 19.
“I think (the committee) really relied on us and the student connection group not only for feedback but also for our experiences,” Ryan Cassidy, a member of the Rutgers football team and a Football Oversight Committee member, said. “That is something I was very happy to see.”
