We have seen a change here at Ga. Southern with new coach Fritz. Our previous coach, Jeff Monken, believed in lots of full contact in practice. Fritz is much less inclined to have full contact and tackling in practice. We have been practicing now for somewhere around 10 days and as I understand it we have been at full contact, tackle to the ground only 1-2 times.

How do other SB teams practice?

(08-11-2014 08:35 PM)GaSoEagle Wrote:  We have seen a change here at Ga. Southern with new coach Fritz. Our previous coach, Jeff Monken, believed in lots of full contact in practice. Fritz is much less inclined to have full contact and tackling in practice. We have been practicing now for somewhere around 10 days and as I understand it we have been at full contact, tackle to the ground only 1-2 times.

How do other SB teams practice?

We've been at full contact twice I think. We have 3 scrimmages scheduled during the fall...each will be full practice. I'm not sure how often we'll go full contact as we get closer to the season.

We only have 2 scrimmages scheduled-- 1 last Saturday (8/9) and 1 next Saturday (8/16). Those are at full contact. Other than those 2 I don't know if we have more than 2 other ones scheduled at full contact the entire preseason.

I am not saying Fritz is making a mistake --- it is just such a change from what Monken did during his 4 years here.

Seems like a really hard call to me.

On one hand, injuries which occur in practice seem particularly senseless.

On the other hand, you want your D accustomed to making hits and your offense accustomed to taking hits.

Concussions are one thing. Torn ACLs are another.

And people call games against major programs 'Body Bag' games, but
NMSU played Ark Pine Bluff a few years back and suffered two concussions.
They're not necessarily a function of size mismatch.

(08-11-2014 08:43 PM)GaSoEagle Wrote:  We only have 2 scrimmages scheduled-- 1 last Saturday (8/9) and 1 next Saturday (8/16). Those are at full contact. Other than those 2 I don't know if we have more than 2 other ones scheduled at full contact the entire preseason.

I am not saying Fritz is making a mistake --- it is just such a change from what Monken did during his 4 years here.

Less is best.......technique with small periods of full contact and scrimmage....then if a player doesn't bring it when the lights are on you move him down the depth chart.

With one year of FBS recruiting GS can ill afford to put their own players out of the first game.

(08-11-2014 09:01 PM)DoubleAggie Wrote:  Seems like a really hard call to me.

On one hand, injuries which occur in practice seem particularly senseless.

On the other hand, you want your D accustomed to making hits and your offense accustomed to taking hits.

Concussions are one thing. Torn ACLs are another.

And people call games against major programs 'Body Bag' games, but
NMSU played Ark Pine Bluff a few years back and suffered two concussions.
They're not necessarily a function of size mismatch.

We had a lot of our starters out before the season even started last year, due to injuries in practice.

A lot of Southern fans are worried that we might become "soft" not practicing full contact all the time, but on the other hand, our scholarships will still be on the field.

Like you said, tough call, but I think only time will tell on this one.

Alabama doesn't practice full contact..... they seem to be real soft....

The less contact is better. You want a healthy team to start the season. The FBS schedule is harder on the body than a FCS schedule.

Very rarely outside of scheduled scrimmages.

I don't think that the practices at GS and many other places are non-contact. What I have heard our coach say is that body to ground contact accounts for many more injuries than body to body contact, so the scrimmages are full contact game-type situations--in other practices they hit and lock up but don't tackle all the way to the ground. In fact I think there are two whistles, one after initial contact and then they are supposed to maintain form and contact until the 2nd whistle.

Idaho practices full contact a lot. Not only that, but we run our scrimmages at an insane pace, each scrimmage features close to 200 snaps which is about 2.5 games worth. I guess it's good for reps and conditioning but more snaps also means more chances for injuries.

(08-14-2014 06:21 PM)nsavandal09 Wrote:  Idaho practices full contact a lot. Not only that, but we run our scrimmages at an insane pace, each scrimmage features close to 200 snaps which is about 2.5 games worth. I guess it's good for reps and conditioning but more snaps also means more chances for injuries.

I like the idea a lot - high reps is the only way to achieve conditioned response.

I'm guessing you're also spreading things out a lot along with tempo.
That should reduces a lot of the violent collisions because it's more one-on-one, more open space, and fewer vulnerable receivers.

"Thud" contact is non contact. Guys in shells pulling up when coming together. How well this soft approach to football works out for us remains to be seen.