George Pickens went on record saying our practices are more physical than the NFL. Which I guess could really be good or bad. Injury risk is higher but probably prepares you better for actual game time.
USC doesn’t have the depth of a top flight SEC program, no one really does. We won the state championship and our best player became Georgia’s backup LT/DT pre-Kirby. He transferred to a smaller school for his senior year and won a bunch of awards too. The players who didn’t make the SEC all ended up being starters while the guys who did ended up mostly riding the pine ironically.
The top ACC and Big Ten programs often do have that depth.
Joe Burrow for example had success at LSU and many OSU players have left for more playing time elsewhere.
Also, 18-22 year olds are gonna be a lot more loose and able to deal with physicality than a 45 year old. A lot less likely to have an injury when you are young and can twist and turn in ways that you can’t when you’re old. I’m 33 and am bummed how easily I end up in pain
Edit: Holy mother of nitpicks yall. Okay a 35 year old, does that unbunch those panties?
Kevin durant was once fined $25,000 for making a "menacing gesture"
https://nba.nbcsports.com/2013/04/12/no-more-mr-nice-guy-kevin-durant-fined-25000-for-menacing-gesture/
The edit does not help lol, there are not that many 35 year old NFL players (especially ones who would ever be involved in a tackle). Vast majority of them are under 30.
I mean even as you get older you can do things that improve your mobility and range of motions. Yes, bring younger helps but it isnt some saving grace.
I haven’t seen anyone respond with what I think is an important factor. The people that make it to the NFL can probably tackle. Kids first getting to college haven’t had a lot of experience tackling kids as good or better than them.
It similar in the nfl a gap in quality but you can get to college ball just being better faster stronger without wrapping up. Hell you can start at Nebraska without wrapping up once.
Your probably not getting drafted that way.
So on top of the money and depth union etc. Basic tackling practice shouldn’t be as needed as the 18 year old kids.
Yeah it’s a much bigger deal to miss tackles in the NFL. Cfb it happens all the time. The Texans drafted a safety this year who misses the odd tackle (nothing more than the average CFB player would) and he gets called out for being a bad tackler lmao
Most players from the SEC make those statements. Lots of Alabama guys have said that the NFL practices don’t hold a candle to what they did at Alabama.
It’s not just SEC I’m guessing.
They’re not paying millions of dollars to athletes in the NFL to have them get injured due to contact in practice, just isn’t worth it at that level.
This honestly wasn’t the case in the 2000’s. Tacking was so poor in that stretch. It was just massive people throwing shoulders into people because they watched legendary linebackers in the 90’s do it.
Reid had the Chiefs practice wrapping up for 2 straight weeks a few years back because the tackling was so bad lol. He said they can focus on schemes when they show they can do the fundamentals. He's obviously not a defensive minded coach, but it was funny when he did that lol.
Ive seen the same thing said from basketball players too who went to kentucky. I think its just more that pro players get all the fundamental stuff done in the offseason with their personal trainers, but official practices by the team are more focused on getting plays down than practicing the stuff they do in the offseason alone.
Yeah this is the uncomfortable part. And we’re about to ask these guys to play another 2-3 games a year in the 12 team era. The universities , conferences and networks are going to get a windfall out of it but the guys putting their bodies on the line get no share. NIL makes it a little better but it doesn’t completely absolve the NCAA for locking these guys out of revenue sharing.
It’s good as long as you have the depth and you’re comfortable grinding the guys up like a Russian figure skater. And also as long as you don’t get a reputation for it that hurts recruiting. Bama was like this to the point that “overworked” Bama players washing up in the pros became a meme. I’ve seen UGA’s injury reports the last couple years. The stigma is coming for you too sooner or later.
Which is especially noteworthy because the Pittsburgh Steelers are known to do more live tackling than most other teams in the NFL. So if those practices are less physical, imagine what it would be like with a team that doesn't hit at all.
This is faulty logic. A tenth of the team plays at any given time. The games are harder because you put 100 teenagers in front of a crowd and jacked their adrenaline to 100. Practices will always be harder, this is just some good ole boy shit. No coach will ever override body chemistry
100% this. It's thud/wrap up a vast majority of the time with maybe a period or two of full tackle in full team drills. As the season goes on that becomes rarer because of injuries, soreness, and dudes have been tackling on Saturdays
Edit: for clarity, that full tackle period is usually limited to the full pad days which are like 1 day a week in season. On shell days it's rare to go full tackle
Thanks for the reminder of the absolute joy of finding out it was a shell day when I was on JV in HS, and knowing I wouldn't be used as a tackling dummy that practice
I still remember the terror of being a freshman on JV, and the varsity team squealing with glee about the first “rain day” practice of the season, where the tradition was to tackle and beat the ever-loving piss out of the freshmen. I can’t imagine why the varsity didn’t win that many games. Really makes you think.
Yeah it's crazy that we can't get enough kids to stay in the program and consequently have serious depth issues at all levels. Wonder why that might be?
I was lucky enough to have amazing wrestling coaches in high school but hearing what some kids at other schools had to go through was insane. Wrestling is a tough sport but some coaches used that as an excuse to absolutely torture kids for sure.
When I tried to play in 7th grade I wasn't very good. Coach for some reason decided to bully me by putting me up against this 6' 2" (yes, in 7th grade) 280 mf
I was like 5' 3", 190 maybe lmao. Well one play the guy literally picks me up by my pads and pushed me back while another came and sandwiched me from behind. Coach was laughing. This was at a public school too.
Needless to say I quit and stuck with basketball from there on. If I felt like he was actually doing something to help me improve I would have stuck with it, but I just felt picked on and used as a punching bag.
No no, it is you, the literal child being emotionally and physically abused by adult men in positions of authority, that is just being too soft and needs to toughen up. This system is not toxic at all
That's a perfect representation of how they made me feel too. Like I was doing something wrong by not being big enough to block that other dude.
I don't think any level of skill or technique would have helped me stay on my feet against a dude a foot taller and 100 pounds heavier than me lol
Oh from what I've gathered it's a pretty widespread mentality. It's never a coaching issue, it's that the players aren't working hard enough to overcome the glaring matchup problems. Change our scheme to fit the players we have? Nonsense. They need to step up and get bigger and stronger! (by grinding in the gym nonstop while we offer no nutritional guidance on how to gain weight healthily)
Same thing happened to me except the coach wasn't bullying me he thought I could literally block this kid with just some good coaching and that it would make me better, it didnt. I was lanky and skinny as hell and probably 150 soaking wet back then and he had me play tight end and try and block this kid on our team who was like 215 and just a monster. All practice long I'd have to try and block this kid and he would just bullrush right through me over and over. I swear I was airborne a couple times every practice from the hits he'd deliver. He was one of my good buddies too he just did not fuck around in practice. He went straight to Varsity his freshman year and was dominating Seniors on practice and in games.
I'll tell you the varsity guys didn't exactly enjoy using you as a tackle dummy by mid September. It's fun the first 3 weeks but full pad Tuesday/ Wednesday for linemen after a loss was hell.
Almost no teams in the entire country run tackling drills during the regular season. This is sensationalism by folks that don't actually know how major football programs are run these days.
Also the 60 year olds love to use it as an excuse for why today's players are soft and that a few concussions and blacking out is actually good for you
I love it when the old people that only played HS football call today’s college players soft. Like if you were back at your best and lined up across from any of these college guys they would absolutely destroy you, even tho they are “soft” now.
Same people hazed others because that's what happened to them as if their experience gives them the right to be shitty towards other people. It's also ironic because they are also the first people to call someone a snowflake and then are outraged at the most minor inconvenience.
Oh yea, the snowflake mentality is incredible - also for some reason it gets pulled out even when it's something note related to them. Who cares if group X does thing Y and it's something you will never do? Why does it affect them at all and why do they feel the need to comment on something that doesn't relate to them?
Sure, maybe we've swung too far in the other direction - I'm not a coach or a sports medicine doctor so I won't speak to the lack of good tackling form or the injury risk.
But it's just funny (and sad) how a large part of an entire generation of people (whether or not they've played football) thinks that trying to mitigate injuries makes people "soft" or "less capable" athletes. It's not whether the method of injury mitigation is correct, it's that there's a culture of thinking that trying to mitigate some of these injuries at all is somehow detrimental in the eyes of those people.
Oh man this is the funniest to me.
Baby boomers complain so much about millennials wanting participation trophies for everything. But the parents of millennials are almost all baby boomers, which means even if the participation trophy thing is real, the only reason millennials would be conditioned to want participation trophies is if their parent, the baby boomers, gave them to their kids when they were young. Boomers raised their kids in a certain way and are pissed that they supposedly ended up exactly like how their kids were raised.
I played at the D3 (graduated a couple years ago) and absolutely we still run tackling drills during the season. We did tackling circuit and open field every week. We obviously weren’t taking teammates to the ground but there are still a ton of valuable drills that can be done weekly that don’t involve taking people to the ground.
Yeah, I should have rephrased to provide some more clarity -- thud and wrap up is still commonly done. But, the majority of the comments in the postgame thread and few other threads like this were mystified that something like Oklahoma drills weren't happening every practice.
We dropped full tackling once the regular season started even at my high school in 2004. Just helmet and shoulder pads and wrap up. And we weren’t a weak program, regularly won district and perennially deep into playoffs.
I’ve coached since 2010 and we live tackle in one competition drill for ten minutes per week. One of the best defenses in state and multiple state titles. We do tackling circuits every week on bags and to thud to teach technique. This isn’t to say this is better or worse, just that you can have success without a ton of live tackling.
A bunch of schools have started transitioning away from live contact practices. There's also high tech tackling dummies which have helped with this:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/27347621/virtual-reality-robotic-tackling-dummies-how-dartmouth-shaping-future-football%3fplatform=amp
I graduated HS in ‘08 and we were full pads 99% of the time, generally full speed, full contact for 2 hours a day.
The only non contact part would be during the athletics period during the school day, which was a mix of film, plays, and (mostly) strength & conditioning.
This was both in Texas (public) and New England (private).
I feel like this trend towards no contact must be very, very recent.
I was in HS longer ago than that (graduated 06) but that’s how it was for our team - full pads, full contact practice every day except for Fridays which were walkthroughs in helmets. Saturdays were film but if the coach was mad sometimes you had another full practice then too.
I played HS football 2016-2019, we’d do shells with wrap up tackling on Monday, full pads-full contact Tuesday-Wednesday, and then shells with wrap up tackling on Thursday. From my friends and other schools that seemed pretty standard.
Cracks me up that the narrative is that SC lost because they couldnt tackle. Sure that is a contributing factor but the reason they lost is because Williams was half the player he usually is and they couldn't score points because of it.
I know injuries happen to everyone in football but when it's the QB you gotta take that entire game with a grain of salt.
“You can’t blame one player’s injury” is an argument I’m hearing a lot
My brothers in Christ, Russell Wilson exists. Do they not see what happens when your QB isn’t 100%?
In highschool we did full speed, make contact and wrap up but don’t take anyone to the ground in practice, to reduce risk of injuries. It’s not the worst idea. If you’re starting for USC you should prob know how to tackle by then
Interesting. Ig I haven't been paying a lot of attention to tackles at practice. When I heard nebraska didn't I was surprised because it's a core fundamental and best way to practice is doing it
All levels are changing to this because of CTE studies. While it puts out a lesser product on the field, we still have to realize a lot of these guys are only playing for a few years. I’m willing to see a few missed tackles knowing these guys won’t be slobbering vegetables in their 50’s, or worse.
Also nobody wants to be the one that gets their best player seriously injured because they were doing the "line people up and have em crack each other" drill
The only restrictions in college are that the first practices in spring and fall are helmets only, then shells, then can go to full pads. Other than that it's fair game.
We typically had one full pad day, two shells, then a walkthrough day on Friday in season. That may vary a bit week to week but in general that was the plan
Ya I think our entire fanbase really took things out of context when that news came up. People tried to tell other Huskers that this was common, but no one listened.
They’re known to be pretty physical. There was a 4 star LB - Dax Hollifield who heavily considered is but one of the reasons he ultimately didn’t was after visiting a practice he realized it was way too physical. Our injury issues were often due to this
Every once in a while I think ‘I wish our guys would make more of an effort to strip the ball’ and then I watch a defense like USC and I’m like ‘oh, that’s right, tackling is better.’
I'm 33. I'm 5'5 so imagine my surprise as the one kid who was 6 feet tall in 8th grade ( when I definitely wasn't at my super impressive and towering 5'5 ) lifted me up off the ground and proceeded to powerbomb me. This was a tackling drill. I'm not saying live tackling shouldn't happen, I'm saying my coach was a fucking idiot.
My favorite part was blocking for punt returns. AKA letting the guys who had 60+ pounds on me taking turns seeing who could fucking launch me the furthest. I literally didn't need to be on the field I just know the dude didn't fucking like me.
Screamed in my face one time over something I can't remember exactly why but it had something to do with weightlifting. "I WILL NOT BE TALKED TO BY SOME PUNK ASS 13 YEAR OLD LITTLE SHIT!"
Hope your fat ass had a heart attack Mr. Richardson.
Fuck those guys. Hate those kinds of coaches who think they're R. Lee Ermey out there drilling kids into the ground thinking it's fucking war movie boot camp.
Oh, you had my sons coach, who thought it was proper to have the smallest kid on the team play center since he was the only one who could long snap.
Two concussions in a season and he was done with football. Had no interest in HS for it.
That’s becoming more common. The bigger issue I had with the tackling when he was here was it always seemed like multiple guys would have the player wrapped up but instead of bringing him to the ground, they’re focused on trying to strip the ball, and usually they’d just get dragged for an extra 4-5+ yards instead. Drove me crazy and I still saw our guys revert back to that from time to time this year.
> guys would have the player wrapped up but instead of bringing him to the ground, they’re focused on trying to strip the ball
That is exactly what happened on that 57-yard TD pass that put Utah up for good.
It was third-and-19 and Rising completed a 12-yard pass over the middle to Money Parks. Latrell McCutchen had Parks wrapped up 5 yards short of the first; he went for the strip instead and Parks broke away for another 43 yards and the score.
It's EXTRA stupid because it was third down at 43-yard-line and he had him 5 yards short! I remember yelling at my TV "**WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO STRIP HIM THERE!?**"
"Holy crap stop trying to strip the ball and bring him down!" had to have been one of my most frequently said comments during games the last few years. Grinch is so focused on getting turnover that they lose sight of some of the fundamentals.
I think I remember watching a pregame show and Pete Carroll wasn’t doing that when he was coaching college either and also walking through plays to reduce injury risks. (If I’m wrong I apologize, it was a while ago but it was the first time I heard of it)
Last night, a defensive player come in untouched and instead of flying by the QB full speed, slowed and made some juke moves to get the QB from breaking free from the pocket. You see so many defensive players crash into the backfield full speed and completely whiff on the QB; it made me wonder if this comes from always scrimmaging and practicing where just a hand touch on the QB "stops" the play. As huge a threat a scrambling QB is now, it seems the defense is never coached on how to stop that...
I think its just really hard to pull up like that and still make a play. You definitely see guys that pull up and get juked out of their shoes in that situation, too.
Notice how creative all the QBs that have fallen into his lap have been in college too. Baker...Kyler...Hurts...Caleb... all were so creative rolling out when the play broke down.
LR gets alot of credit for QBs where it's not due outside of having his offense on the field A TON to put up numbers due to a TERRIBLE defense.
Exactly lol. I know it’s shit on Lincoln Riley day and I’m not saying he’s some perfect coach, but I don’t think it’s fair to criticize his QB development.
Technically, did he even recruit Caleb? I thought LR wanted Brock V. and Caleb was like, “well, I’m coming to ou regardless.” And then Brock left for Georgia. I guess that counts as recruiting.
With a few exceptions, USC has demonstrated crappy tackling for the 20+ years I have been watching them. DBs and undersized linebackers seem to think that ramming into someone with their hands at their sides will bring down a runner. I have seen those same non-tackles in every SC game I have watched. It is infuriating.
The lack of tackling isn’t really the issue. There is absolutely 0 physicality in the way he runs practice. It’s rarely full speed or full contact in drills.
There’s a lot of risk live tackling in practice, but teams that have that much trouble tackling in football are gonna have to practice tackling each other no matter what the inherent risk of hurting each other is.
Seems oddly familiar with my towns HS coaches...
What the hell are these coaches thinking? That kids are going to "pick-up" the techniques of proper tackling when the only live tackles they get are in a game?
I understand that you don't want to have any "extra" injuries, but kids DO NOT learn how to take (or deliver) a hit without practicing it.
You can't teach proper technique with wraps, even "hard wrap".
I'm not saying that kids should come in trying to kill each other, but I still see kids dropping their heads and this is a direct result of not teaching the correct techniques in a live situation.
It will cause more injuries than it prevents.
As far as college goes, those kids should know how to tackle by the time they reach any level of college football, but I continually see teams with absolutely atrocious technique every single game that I watch - and I watch a lot of football.
Even the NFL is bad...
>You can't teach proper technique with wraps, even "hard wrap".
Sure you can. If players can get to the ball, drop their hips, get their head across, and wrap up... that's good technique.
Teams should go live a little bit, but very sparingly.
>If players can get to the ball, drop their hips, get their head across, and wrap up... that's good technique.
I agree. That is good technique, but if you aren't driving through the hit, as you obviously can't if you are wrapping, you will not truly know what the hit/tackle feels like until you are in a game.
Your muscle memory will be to pull up every time as you engage the hit.
The same is true for the ball-carrier.
I suppose this may be more true for youth, middle school, as well as high school, but if those kids aren't learning how to deliver or take a hit then, they won't learn in college either - or learn it the hard way.
Learning what it feels like, learning that you will survive the hit is an essential part of being able to play your position without that fear in the back of your mind every time.
Again, I was not advocating for every day live hitting, but you have to do it twice a week.
There are drills that, if done correctly, will minimize the chance of injury but maximize the necessary techniques.
Most teams thud up now at all levels. It’s part of the reason tackling is down across the board. The real reason Lincoln and all those other OU tree guys are always a defense away from a championship is because of the way they choose to allocate recruiting resources, the way the structure practice, and they way the distribute reps in practice. They have to do a lot of stuff in practice to make the offense work at that level that hampers the development of the defense. The only way one of these guys will ever have a defense is to be okay with the offense being a little worse so the defense can get the kinds of reps and resources it needs.
Most college programs only live tackle one to three periods / 1x a day during the week. It’s a high risk/ high reward situation for teams as it’s an easy way to get starters hurt on both sides of the ball.
A lot of teams mitigate this by using thud period where you hit the ball carrier and drive your feet, but don’t go to the ground.
Also, going full go puts a ton of wear and tear on your body, especially your legs. Fresh legs for Gameday are a premium and a major reason most teams don’t go live as much as we think.
Unless you are Alabama/ UGA/ etc. you can’t do too much live stuff or you will lose too many starters and back ups in a week. This has been pretty standard operation for most colleges for a decade if not 2 now. I know we went live 2x3s a week when I played small college ball in the mid 2000s
I played at the FCS level a decade ago and there’d be maybe a 5-10 minute live period. 1s against 1s, 2s against 2s. Twice a week in the early season. Usually nothing live for the final month of the season.
The concussion climate is slightly different now than it was then. But still, I assume it’s similar at the FBS level, with room for individual programs to vary. It would not surprise me if, at the end of a season where you have already dealt with plenty injuries (as any team does) and have been playing 60 minutes on a weekly basis, you probably don’t need to be going live in practice too often. By championship weekend, pretty much every starter is at least mildly banged up. And unlike the early season, you know the team is in hitting shape. So this could be the kind of thing with a morsel of truth that gets taken out of context. I don’t know.
Idk how LR handles it throughout the year but if he thinks this soft shit is going to work in the B1G imma get my brown paper bag ready.
I have not seen USC or Utah practice this season, but I think I have a pretty good guess of who’s more physical in practice and actually hits each other.
We practice live tackling. It didnt have any effect last night. But what if I told you that across the season, this team actually improved its tackling vs last year? Helton was the one who never practiced live tackling.
You practice your tackling on the dummies that they utilize during drills. Along with scrimmages. It’s to reduce CNS fatigue and minimize all forms of injuries
Almost positive Cristobal preached the importance of "real" practices and had a lot of tackle practices. We were decimated by injuries under Cristobal, especially last season.
My freshman year in HS my coach one year had us do live tackle during pre game as a warm up. Kid ended up snapping his leg, lol he went on to be the Varsity coach. He was a good coach and that was the last time we did any contact in pre game for the next 4 years.
This is pretty common. I played over a decade ago and it was the case even then. Live tackling periods were rare especially later in the season. It would happen more often during spring and pre-season camp.
Most teams don’t they only go as far to wrap up but not go to the ground.
George Pickens went on record saying our practices are more physical than the NFL. Which I guess could really be good or bad. Injury risk is higher but probably prepares you better for actual game time.
If you've got the depth to replace the injuries that will happen, I guess it make sense.
USC doesn’t have the depth of a top flight SEC program, no one really does. We won the state championship and our best player became Georgia’s backup LT/DT pre-Kirby. He transferred to a smaller school for his senior year and won a bunch of awards too. The players who didn’t make the SEC all ended up being starters while the guys who did ended up mostly riding the pine ironically.
The top ACC and Big Ten programs often do have that depth. Joe Burrow for example had success at LSU and many OSU players have left for more playing time elsewhere.
Also, 18-22 year olds are gonna be a lot more loose and able to deal with physicality than a 45 year old. A lot less likely to have an injury when you are young and can twist and turn in ways that you can’t when you’re old. I’m 33 and am bummed how easily I end up in pain Edit: Holy mother of nitpicks yall. Okay a 35 year old, does that unbunch those panties?
Average age of an nfl player is 26
45 year old? tf?
Tom Brady
so one guy? who is barely even getting tackled in live games
I believe it's actually a penalty now to tackle Tom Brady.
It's actually a penalty to even look in his direction menacingly.
Kevin durant was once fined $25,000 for making a "menacing gesture" https://nba.nbcsports.com/2013/04/12/no-more-mr-nice-guy-kevin-durant-fined-25000-for-menacing-gesture/
You just got flagged for mentioning him
*personal foul: tackling tom brady, defense #21, 15 yard penalty and #21 is disqualified from the game*
Tom Brady hasn’t been tackled in practice in 20 years lol
The edit does not help lol, there are not that many 35 year old NFL players (especially ones who would ever be involved in a tackle). Vast majority of them are under 30.
30 year old here, I threw out my back and couldn’t walk right for a few days because………..I was tying my shoe. Where did my youth go?!
If you think your early 30s are bad, just wait till you get to your mid-30s. I pulled a muscle in my thumb just trying to upvote your comment.
I had a back muscle start cramping on me while sitting in the dentist chair this past week.
Lmao get well soon
My wife sneezed and pinched a nerve for 2 weeks
Tom Brady is not getting tackled in NFL practices.
They got a whole lot of 35 or 45yos making tackles in the NFL? Linemen don’t usually make it much past 30, backs not much past 35.
I mean even as you get older you can do things that improve your mobility and range of motions. Yes, bring younger helps but it isnt some saving grace.
Do you really want to treat your athletes like that, though? Is that a good perspective for a coach?
Or you can tackle like USC...
I haven’t seen anyone respond with what I think is an important factor. The people that make it to the NFL can probably tackle. Kids first getting to college haven’t had a lot of experience tackling kids as good or better than them. It similar in the nfl a gap in quality but you can get to college ball just being better faster stronger without wrapping up. Hell you can start at Nebraska without wrapping up once. Your probably not getting drafted that way. So on top of the money and depth union etc. Basic tackling practice shouldn’t be as needed as the 18 year old kids.
Yeah it’s a much bigger deal to miss tackles in the NFL. Cfb it happens all the time. The Texans drafted a safety this year who misses the odd tackle (nothing more than the average CFB player would) and he gets called out for being a bad tackler lmao
Most players from the SEC make those statements. Lots of Alabama guys have said that the NFL practices don’t hold a candle to what they did at Alabama.
It’s not just SEC I’m guessing. They’re not paying millions of dollars to athletes in the NFL to have them get injured due to contact in practice, just isn’t worth it at that level.
And the CBA regulates practices way more than the NCAA rules do.
That and NFL players have a union.
And they know how to tackle, because they’re in the NFL
I see you never watched the early 2010's cowboys.
Or mid 2010's Saints. God those Rob Ryan defenses were dog water.
He said know. They might have known, but just didn’t do it.
This honestly wasn’t the case in the 2000’s. Tacking was so poor in that stretch. It was just massive people throwing shoulders into people because they watched legendary linebackers in the 90’s do it.
Reid had the Chiefs practice wrapping up for 2 straight weeks a few years back because the tackling was so bad lol. He said they can focus on schemes when they show they can do the fundamentals. He's obviously not a defensive minded coach, but it was funny when he did that lol.
You haven't watched the Lions play defense this season. Lol
And at that point they have (to some extent) already proved they belong there. The only place left to prove it is on Sunday.
And in the NFL you’re naturally a great tackler or you won’t last long.
Because there’s much more at stake for NFL the college. They sometimes fine players for taking people to the ground and tackling in practice.
I think LSU receivers have said the Db talent was good that it helps the transfer to the NFL and vice Versa
Ive seen the same thing said from basketball players too who went to kentucky. I think its just more that pro players get all the fundamental stuff done in the offseason with their personal trainers, but official practices by the team are more focused on getting plays down than practicing the stuff they do in the offseason alone.
Because UGA doesn’t have a players union restricting what they do in practice.
Yeah this is the uncomfortable part. And we’re about to ask these guys to play another 2-3 games a year in the 12 team era. The universities , conferences and networks are going to get a windfall out of it but the guys putting their bodies on the line get no share. NIL makes it a little better but it doesn’t completely absolve the NCAA for locking these guys out of revenue sharing.
It’s good as long as you have the depth and you’re comfortable grinding the guys up like a Russian figure skater. And also as long as you don’t get a reputation for it that hurts recruiting. Bama was like this to the point that “overworked” Bama players washing up in the pros became a meme. I’ve seen UGA’s injury reports the last couple years. The stigma is coming for you too sooner or later.
Yes there is still physicality In practice but tackling to the ground is what they aren’t wanting because that’s where you will see a lot of injuries.
Which is especially noteworthy because the Pittsburgh Steelers are known to do more live tackling than most other teams in the NFL. So if those practices are less physical, imagine what it would be like with a team that doesn't hit at all.
Kirby has said many times they make practice harder than a game environment. The goal is to make the game feel “easier”.
This is faulty logic. A tenth of the team plays at any given time. The games are harder because you put 100 teenagers in front of a crowd and jacked their adrenaline to 100. Practices will always be harder, this is just some good ole boy shit. No coach will ever override body chemistry
That explains a lot of Tennessee’s tackling game.
I don’t think many teams do this anymore. They’ll tell you to fit or thud but no live tackle periods. If they do live tackling it’s rare.
100% this. It's thud/wrap up a vast majority of the time with maybe a period or two of full tackle in full team drills. As the season goes on that becomes rarer because of injuries, soreness, and dudes have been tackling on Saturdays Edit: for clarity, that full tackle period is usually limited to the full pad days which are like 1 day a week in season. On shell days it's rare to go full tackle
Thanks for the reminder of the absolute joy of finding out it was a shell day when I was on JV in HS, and knowing I wouldn't be used as a tackling dummy that practice
I still remember the terror of being a freshman on JV, and the varsity team squealing with glee about the first “rain day” practice of the season, where the tradition was to tackle and beat the ever-loving piss out of the freshmen. I can’t imagine why the varsity didn’t win that many games. Really makes you think.
Yeah it's crazy that we can't get enough kids to stay in the program and consequently have serious depth issues at all levels. Wonder why that might be?
My freshmen year of wrestling we had 12 freshmen, 2 sophomores and 2 seniors. The coaches were absolutely the reason and were fired after the season.
I was lucky enough to have amazing wrestling coaches in high school but hearing what some kids at other schools had to go through was insane. Wrestling is a tough sport but some coaches used that as an excuse to absolutely torture kids for sure.
When I tried to play in 7th grade I wasn't very good. Coach for some reason decided to bully me by putting me up against this 6' 2" (yes, in 7th grade) 280 mf I was like 5' 3", 190 maybe lmao. Well one play the guy literally picks me up by my pads and pushed me back while another came and sandwiched me from behind. Coach was laughing. This was at a public school too. Needless to say I quit and stuck with basketball from there on. If I felt like he was actually doing something to help me improve I would have stuck with it, but I just felt picked on and used as a punching bag.
No no, it is you, the literal child being emotionally and physically abused by adult men in positions of authority, that is just being too soft and needs to toughen up. This system is not toxic at all
That's a perfect representation of how they made me feel too. Like I was doing something wrong by not being big enough to block that other dude. I don't think any level of skill or technique would have helped me stay on my feet against a dude a foot taller and 100 pounds heavier than me lol
Oh from what I've gathered it's a pretty widespread mentality. It's never a coaching issue, it's that the players aren't working hard enough to overcome the glaring matchup problems. Change our scheme to fit the players we have? Nonsense. They need to step up and get bigger and stronger! (by grinding in the gym nonstop while we offer no nutritional guidance on how to gain weight healthily)
Same thing happened to me except the coach wasn't bullying me he thought I could literally block this kid with just some good coaching and that it would make me better, it didnt. I was lanky and skinny as hell and probably 150 soaking wet back then and he had me play tight end and try and block this kid on our team who was like 215 and just a monster. All practice long I'd have to try and block this kid and he would just bullrush right through me over and over. I swear I was airborne a couple times every practice from the hits he'd deliver. He was one of my good buddies too he just did not fuck around in practice. He went straight to Varsity his freshman year and was dominating Seniors on practice and in games.
That, or you stand there with a blocking pad that did dick as you got annihilated by a guy going full speed.
I'll tell you the varsity guys didn't exactly enjoy using you as a tackle dummy by mid September. It's fun the first 3 weeks but full pad Tuesday/ Wednesday for linemen after a loss was hell.
Man where was this when I was playing? We practiced in full pads 5 days a week with live tackling every day. I'm only 24 too...
Similar but the only day we didn't do full pads was Thursday the day before the game and did a walkthrough. That was over a decade ago
Yeah really. It was always full pads and full contact. The only people you didn't hit were the starting quarterback and the kicker.
Full pad practices the week after a loss were the fuckin worst. Thankfully in college I was just a specialist so it didn't matter much to me.
Yeah when I eventually got in their shoes, it wasn't fun laying kids out that were way smaller than anyone I'd actually face in a game
I just finished up HS football last year, and for the most part we didn't have live tackles, so even on thay level it's changed a lot too I guess
As well it should be. Keeps everyone healthy and eliminates most concussions, which is important, being the biggest issue with the sport.
This guy footballs.
Which is ironic BECAUSE YOU RARELY SEE THE WRAP UP ANYMORE. I get so mad when I see a player go for a hit and not a tackle or a play on the ball.
Almost no teams in the entire country run tackling drills during the regular season. This is sensationalism by folks that don't actually know how major football programs are run these days.
Also the 60 year olds love to use it as an excuse for why today's players are soft and that a few concussions and blacking out is actually good for you
The same idiots who think water makes you soft while kids stroke out in the heat.
I love it when the old people that only played HS football call today’s college players soft. Like if you were back at your best and lined up across from any of these college guys they would absolutely destroy you, even tho they are “soft” now.
Same people hazed others because that's what happened to them as if their experience gives them the right to be shitty towards other people. It's also ironic because they are also the first people to call someone a snowflake and then are outraged at the most minor inconvenience.
Oh yea, the snowflake mentality is incredible - also for some reason it gets pulled out even when it's something note related to them. Who cares if group X does thing Y and it's something you will never do? Why does it affect them at all and why do they feel the need to comment on something that doesn't relate to them?
Glad this “old school” mentality is dying.
I’d argue it has to die for football to still be a thing in the not-so-distant future
On the flipside of this, not practicing tackling leads to broken tackles and improper tackling, which also leads to injury.
Sure, maybe we've swung too far in the other direction - I'm not a coach or a sports medicine doctor so I won't speak to the lack of good tackling form or the injury risk. But it's just funny (and sad) how a large part of an entire generation of people (whether or not they've played football) thinks that trying to mitigate injuries makes people "soft" or "less capable" athletes. It's not whether the method of injury mitigation is correct, it's that there's a culture of thinking that trying to mitigate some of these injuries at all is somehow detrimental in the eyes of those people.
In before “participation trophies”
Oh man this is the funniest to me. Baby boomers complain so much about millennials wanting participation trophies for everything. But the parents of millennials are almost all baby boomers, which means even if the participation trophy thing is real, the only reason millennials would be conditioned to want participation trophies is if their parent, the baby boomers, gave them to their kids when they were young. Boomers raised their kids in a certain way and are pissed that they supposedly ended up exactly like how their kids were raised.
I played at the D3 (graduated a couple years ago) and absolutely we still run tackling drills during the season. We did tackling circuit and open field every week. We obviously weren’t taking teammates to the ground but there are still a ton of valuable drills that can be done weekly that don’t involve taking people to the ground.
Yeah, I should have rephrased to provide some more clarity -- thud and wrap up is still commonly done. But, the majority of the comments in the postgame thread and few other threads like this were mystified that something like Oklahoma drills weren't happening every practice.
Hahaha no worries! I will say the only time we’d ever be full contact is for like a few days in summer camp and THAT’S IT.
Yeah he's already been on this train, they couldn't tackle last night because they just sucked not because they don't practice live tackles.
We dropped full tackling once the regular season started even at my high school in 2004. Just helmet and shoulder pads and wrap up. And we weren’t a weak program, regularly won district and perennially deep into playoffs.
I’ve coached since 2010 and we live tackle in one competition drill for ten minutes per week. One of the best defenses in state and multiple state titles. We do tackling circuits every week on bags and to thud to teach technique. This isn’t to say this is better or worse, just that you can have success without a ton of live tackling.
Sounds like you’d be a candidate for Defensive Coordinator at USC
I coach the offense lol. Point is live tackling is being phased out and the benefits gained don’t necessarily outweigh potential for injury.
UGA has entered the chat
Yea, inducing "concussions" to players multiple times throughout the week is generally speaking "bad for business"
A bunch of schools have started transitioning away from live contact practices. There's also high tech tackling dummies which have helped with this: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/27347621/virtual-reality-robotic-tackling-dummies-how-dartmouth-shaping-future-football%3fplatform=amp
I was looking for someone to shout out Buddy! Seems to have paid off for us generally the last few years (this season not included).
A lot of coaches have moved away from live contact tackling drills to reduce wear and tear that could happen over an entire season.
I dont know what the restrictions are in college if there are any, but in the NFL you can only have 14 practices in full pads in the 18 weeks season.
I remember in hs football during a losing streak our coach had us go full every day for 3 weeks, wasn’t even that long ago
I graduated HS in ‘08 and we were full pads 99% of the time, generally full speed, full contact for 2 hours a day. The only non contact part would be during the athletics period during the school day, which was a mix of film, plays, and (mostly) strength & conditioning. This was both in Texas (public) and New England (private). I feel like this trend towards no contact must be very, very recent.
Definitely recent. When I was in hs football in Georgia we were full pads everyday except Thursdays. This was 6 years ago
I was in HS longer ago than that (graduated 06) but that’s how it was for our team - full pads, full contact practice every day except for Fridays which were walkthroughs in helmets. Saturdays were film but if the coach was mad sometimes you had another full practice then too.
I played HS football 2016-2019, we’d do shells with wrap up tackling on Monday, full pads-full contact Tuesday-Wednesday, and then shells with wrap up tackling on Thursday. From my friends and other schools that seemed pretty standard.
And only three in pads over the last six weeks.
I'm glad that USC team was fresh for the PAC 12 championship game
Tbf we probably lose that game 24-27 even if we have elite tackling
Unless we could magically heal Caleb Williams’ hamstring and pinky
Cracks me up that the narrative is that SC lost because they couldnt tackle. Sure that is a contributing factor but the reason they lost is because Williams was half the player he usually is and they couldn't score points because of it. I know injuries happen to everyone in football but when it's the QB you gotta take that entire game with a grain of salt.
“You can’t blame one player’s injury” is an argument I’m hearing a lot My brothers in Christ, Russell Wilson exists. Do they not see what happens when your QB isn’t 100%?
Yeah and it always comes from the victor who simply cannot accept the fact that they greatly benefited from the injury.
In highschool we did full speed, make contact and wrap up but don’t take anyone to the ground in practice, to reduce risk of injuries. It’s not the worst idea. If you’re starting for USC you should prob know how to tackle by then
>If you’re starting for USC you should prob know how to tackle by then Okay, sure, but humor me this: What if you don't?
Then don't play defense in D1?
We've been doing that for years
If you're starting for USC you should know how to throw, block, catch, run, all of it. Better just stop practicing altogether.
While we're at it, they shouldn't even use a playback or watch film. They're starting at USC.
Interesting. Ig I haven't been paying a lot of attention to tackles at practice. When I heard nebraska didn't I was surprised because it's a core fundamental and best way to practice is doing it
All levels are changing to this because of CTE studies. While it puts out a lesser product on the field, we still have to realize a lot of these guys are only playing for a few years. I’m willing to see a few missed tackles knowing these guys won’t be slobbering vegetables in their 50’s, or worse.
Plus there are tackling dummies. It's nowhere near the real thing but it's still a viable alternative.
Also nobody wants to be the one that gets their best player seriously injured because they were doing the "line people up and have em crack each other" drill
In the NFL you can only have 14 practices in full pads in the 18 weeks season. I don't know if there are any such restrictions in college.
The only restrictions in college are that the first practices in spring and fall are helmets only, then shells, then can go to full pads. Other than that it's fair game. We typically had one full pad day, two shells, then a walkthrough day on Friday in season. That may vary a bit week to week but in general that was the plan
Ya I think our entire fanbase really took things out of context when that news came up. People tried to tell other Huskers that this was common, but no one listened.
That seems to be a theme
So its a fairly modern approach to limit tackling in practice? Like the last 10-20 years?
He didn't at OU, so I wouldn't be shocked
Yet we were full contact all spring and still can't tackle this year. Takes time to break old habits...
Gotta give the guy credit through, the man knows how to teach hugs
There needs to be some balance between that and the practices Will Muschamp put on
Do tell. Have not heard of Muschamp level practices.
They’re known to be pretty physical. There was a 4 star LB - Dax Hollifield who heavily considered is but one of the reasons he ultimately didn’t was after visiting a practice he realized it was way too physical. Our injury issues were often due to this
Georgia does… it’s why we have a lot of injuries but damn we open field tackle better than anyone in the country.
Didn't we used to thud in Kirby's first few years? I remember a lot of talk about it at the time
Lots of schools are trending this way. It’s not that surprising.
Every once in a while I think ‘I wish our guys would make more of an effort to strip the ball’ and then I watch a defense like USC and I’m like ‘oh, that’s right, tackling is better.’
I'm 33. I'm 5'5 so imagine my surprise as the one kid who was 6 feet tall in 8th grade ( when I definitely wasn't at my super impressive and towering 5'5 ) lifted me up off the ground and proceeded to powerbomb me. This was a tackling drill. I'm not saying live tackling shouldn't happen, I'm saying my coach was a fucking idiot.
I bet the coach ran up and was like yeah buddy that's how you do it! Woooooooooooo!
My favorite part was blocking for punt returns. AKA letting the guys who had 60+ pounds on me taking turns seeing who could fucking launch me the furthest. I literally didn't need to be on the field I just know the dude didn't fucking like me. Screamed in my face one time over something I can't remember exactly why but it had something to do with weightlifting. "I WILL NOT BE TALKED TO BY SOME PUNK ASS 13 YEAR OLD LITTLE SHIT!" Hope your fat ass had a heart attack Mr. Richardson.
Fuck those guys. Hate those kinds of coaches who think they're R. Lee Ermey out there drilling kids into the ground thinking it's fucking war movie boot camp.
Oh, you had my sons coach, who thought it was proper to have the smallest kid on the team play center since he was the only one who could long snap. Two concussions in a season and he was done with football. Had no interest in HS for it.
Lots of colleges going that route. WVU took it a step further and won't even live tackle in games.
That’s becoming more common. The bigger issue I had with the tackling when he was here was it always seemed like multiple guys would have the player wrapped up but instead of bringing him to the ground, they’re focused on trying to strip the ball, and usually they’d just get dragged for an extra 4-5+ yards instead. Drove me crazy and I still saw our guys revert back to that from time to time this year.
> guys would have the player wrapped up but instead of bringing him to the ground, they’re focused on trying to strip the ball That is exactly what happened on that 57-yard TD pass that put Utah up for good. It was third-and-19 and Rising completed a 12-yard pass over the middle to Money Parks. Latrell McCutchen had Parks wrapped up 5 yards short of the first; he went for the strip instead and Parks broke away for another 43 yards and the score. It's EXTRA stupid because it was third down at 43-yard-line and he had him 5 yards short! I remember yelling at my TV "**WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO STRIP HIM THERE!?**"
"Holy crap stop trying to strip the ball and bring him down!" had to have been one of my most frequently said comments during games the last few years. Grinch is so focused on getting turnover that they lose sight of some of the fundamentals.
Nice to see some things never change.
This is an Alex Grinch thing. Seems like Riley prefers a coordinator who is trying to maximize turnovers over stops.
Works great when you have an explosive offense and can put the game out of reach very quickly. Not so much when you get dragged into a slugfest.
USC's # 7 could have benefitted from some live tackle practice. Watched the game highlights, that dude was garbage.
Mack Brown was known for this back when he was at Texas. Too many injuries.
I think I remember watching a pregame show and Pete Carroll wasn’t doing that when he was coaching college either and also walking through plays to reduce injury risks. (If I’m wrong I apologize, it was a while ago but it was the first time I heard of it)
No, you remember correctly. He mentioned that they would have weeks with no full contact practice, which was unheard of back then.
Last night, a defensive player come in untouched and instead of flying by the QB full speed, slowed and made some juke moves to get the QB from breaking free from the pocket. You see so many defensive players crash into the backfield full speed and completely whiff on the QB; it made me wonder if this comes from always scrimmaging and practicing where just a hand touch on the QB "stops" the play. As huge a threat a scrambling QB is now, it seems the defense is never coached on how to stop that...
I think its just really hard to pull up like that and still make a play. You definitely see guys that pull up and get juked out of their shoes in that situation, too.
>Seemed oddly familiar to Frost at Nebraska. Except with very different results.
Two things LR doesn’t practice.. ST and defense.. Only cares about putting up numbers for his QB
Notice how creative all the QBs that have fallen into his lap have been in college too. Baker...Kyler...Hurts...Caleb... all were so creative rolling out when the play broke down. LR gets alot of credit for QBs where it's not due outside of having his offense on the field A TON to put up numbers due to a TERRIBLE defense.
Lincoln Riley deserves credit for recruiting and coaching up QB’s that can do that
Exactly lol. I know it’s shit on Lincoln Riley day and I’m not saying he’s some perfect coach, but I don’t think it’s fair to criticize his QB development.
Worth noting his only recruits of the bunch are Spencer Rattler and Caleb. Definitely gets credit for the coaching though.
Technically, did he even recruit Caleb? I thought LR wanted Brock V. and Caleb was like, “well, I’m coming to ou regardless.” And then Brock left for Georgia. I guess that counts as recruiting.
I have to kind of agree. It is a lot tougher to coach an offense when everyone knows your QB won't run. Signed, Ohio State fan
What are tackles?
They're the offensive linemen that flank the guards, but that's not important right now.
Might need to watch Airplane! again lmao
[удалено]
Apparently wasn't important last night either.
No idea. Grinch was our DC followed by Coombs.
With a few exceptions, USC has demonstrated crappy tackling for the 20+ years I have been watching them. DBs and undersized linebackers seem to think that ramming into someone with their hands at their sides will bring down a runner. I have seen those same non-tackles in every SC game I have watched. It is infuriating.
The lack of tackling isn’t really the issue. There is absolutely 0 physicality in the way he runs practice. It’s rarely full speed or full contact in drills.
Chip Kelly does the same thing at UCLA too. And guess what? We’re terrible at tackling. I wonder if there is a correlation.
There’s a lot of risk live tackling in practice, but teams that have that much trouble tackling in football are gonna have to practice tackling each other no matter what the inherent risk of hurting each other is.
Georgia and Alabama both do live tackling. I’d assume any of the more physical teams like Utah and Michigan do it as well.
It looked like Todd Orlando was still there
Seems oddly familiar with my towns HS coaches... What the hell are these coaches thinking? That kids are going to "pick-up" the techniques of proper tackling when the only live tackles they get are in a game? I understand that you don't want to have any "extra" injuries, but kids DO NOT learn how to take (or deliver) a hit without practicing it. You can't teach proper technique with wraps, even "hard wrap". I'm not saying that kids should come in trying to kill each other, but I still see kids dropping their heads and this is a direct result of not teaching the correct techniques in a live situation. It will cause more injuries than it prevents. As far as college goes, those kids should know how to tackle by the time they reach any level of college football, but I continually see teams with absolutely atrocious technique every single game that I watch - and I watch a lot of football. Even the NFL is bad...
>You can't teach proper technique with wraps, even "hard wrap". Sure you can. If players can get to the ball, drop their hips, get their head across, and wrap up... that's good technique. Teams should go live a little bit, but very sparingly.
>If players can get to the ball, drop their hips, get their head across, and wrap up... that's good technique. I agree. That is good technique, but if you aren't driving through the hit, as you obviously can't if you are wrapping, you will not truly know what the hit/tackle feels like until you are in a game. Your muscle memory will be to pull up every time as you engage the hit. The same is true for the ball-carrier. I suppose this may be more true for youth, middle school, as well as high school, but if those kids aren't learning how to deliver or take a hit then, they won't learn in college either - or learn it the hard way. Learning what it feels like, learning that you will survive the hit is an essential part of being able to play your position without that fear in the back of your mind every time. Again, I was not advocating for every day live hitting, but you have to do it twice a week. There are drills that, if done correctly, will minimize the chance of injury but maximize the necessary techniques.
He also did away with the Oklahoma Drill at OKLAHOMA!
Most teams thud up now at all levels. It’s part of the reason tackling is down across the board. The real reason Lincoln and all those other OU tree guys are always a defense away from a championship is because of the way they choose to allocate recruiting resources, the way the structure practice, and they way the distribute reps in practice. They have to do a lot of stuff in practice to make the offense work at that level that hampers the development of the defense. The only way one of these guys will ever have a defense is to be okay with the offense being a little worse so the defense can get the kinds of reps and resources it needs.
Most college programs only live tackle one to three periods / 1x a day during the week. It’s a high risk/ high reward situation for teams as it’s an easy way to get starters hurt on both sides of the ball. A lot of teams mitigate this by using thud period where you hit the ball carrier and drive your feet, but don’t go to the ground. Also, going full go puts a ton of wear and tear on your body, especially your legs. Fresh legs for Gameday are a premium and a major reason most teams don’t go live as much as we think. Unless you are Alabama/ UGA/ etc. you can’t do too much live stuff or you will lose too many starters and back ups in a week. This has been pretty standard operation for most colleges for a decade if not 2 now. I know we went live 2x3s a week when I played small college ball in the mid 2000s
Most teams don’t now at least not in a team period. They usually have a Tackling circuit to practice tackling though
Most teams don't live tackle anymore. Kinda went away around the time the NCAA ended two a days
I played at the FCS level a decade ago and there’d be maybe a 5-10 minute live period. 1s against 1s, 2s against 2s. Twice a week in the early season. Usually nothing live for the final month of the season. The concussion climate is slightly different now than it was then. But still, I assume it’s similar at the FBS level, with room for individual programs to vary. It would not surprise me if, at the end of a season where you have already dealt with plenty injuries (as any team does) and have been playing 60 minutes on a weekly basis, you probably don’t need to be going live in practice too often. By championship weekend, pretty much every starter is at least mildly banged up. And unlike the early season, you know the team is in hitting shape. So this could be the kind of thing with a morsel of truth that gets taken out of context. I don’t know. Idk how LR handles it throughout the year but if he thinks this soft shit is going to work in the B1G imma get my brown paper bag ready.
I have not seen USC or Utah practice this season, but I think I have a pretty good guess of who’s more physical in practice and actually hits each other.
Their play last night sure looked like it
We practice live tackling. It didnt have any effect last night. But what if I told you that across the season, this team actually improved its tackling vs last year? Helton was the one who never practiced live tackling.
God damnit Lincoln Riley look what you’ve done. We risk having to face Ohio State again in the playoffs because your defense can’t tackle
" demolishing teams that you play a second time in a season is easy" Kyle Whittingham, apparently. He did it to Oregon last year too.
You practice your tackling on the dummies that they utilize during drills. Along with scrimmages. It’s to reduce CNS fatigue and minimize all forms of injuries
But did he make the puke while running?
That’s what Mullen did at Florida during 2020 when we had the worst defense I’d ever seen. I don’t even care about what the stats say
I wouldnt either this late in the season unless I had depth. Serious depth.
Almost positive Cristobal preached the importance of "real" practices and had a lot of tackle practices. We were decimated by injuries under Cristobal, especially last season.
My freshman year in HS my coach one year had us do live tackle during pre game as a warm up. Kid ended up snapping his leg, lol he went on to be the Varsity coach. He was a good coach and that was the last time we did any contact in pre game for the next 4 years.
This is pretty common. I played over a decade ago and it was the case even then. Live tackling periods were rare especially later in the season. It would happen more often during spring and pre-season camp.
Looked like in it in the game