Indiana's Fall Camp Will Look Different Without Two-a-day Practices
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Tom Allen is entering his first fall camp of his head coaching career at Indiana. Image: http://coachingsearch.com/images/stories/Tom%20Allen%20USA%20Today.jpg
Written By Evan McShane (@very_reasonable)
The archaic method of using two-a-days to get players in shape was legislated out of existence this April. The NCAA revealed a rule eliminating multiple contact practices per day during the preseason. The rule change was almost immediately adopted by Division II and Division III. Specifically, the new regulation states:
"A single day may include a single, three-hour, on-field practice session and a walk-through. During walk-throughs, protective equipment such as helmets and pads can’t be worn, and contact is prohibited. Walk-throughs also can’t include conditioning activities and, in the Football Championship Subdivision, are limited to two hours in length. Three continuous hours of recovery are required between on-field practice and a walk-through. Activities such as meetings, film review, medical treatment and meals are allowed during recovery time."
This was an inevitable move everyone saw coming. “It just makes all the sense in the world,” according to Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh, a firm believer in the ban. In 2011, the NFL Players Association agreed to prohibit two-a-days as part of the amended Collective Bargaining Agreement. Changes at the professional level usually trickle down to lower levels of competition. The primary reasoning for outlawing two-a-day practices revolves around player safety. With the continuing rise in concussion research in football, a devotion to protect the safety of players is paramount to keeping participation of the sport alive at all levels. It’s only reasonable to assume two-a-days will be phased out at the high school and pee-wee level across the country, if they haven’t been already.
Hoosier player stretch during spring workouts. Image: Sammy Jacobs HoosierHuddle.com
The legislation is backed by an endorsement from the NCAA Sport Science Institute. The institute discovered 58 percent of concussions sustained during practice occur during the preseason. Although concussion prevention is at the forefront, the NCAA hopes that all forms of injuries will dramatically decrease. The NCAA’s chief medical officer, Brian Hainline, found that August is a peak month for catastrophic injuries. "There was just something about that month really stood out," Hainline said. "We couldn't say with statistical certainty if this was because of the two-a-days, but there was enough consensus in the room and enough preliminary data that it looked like it was because of the two-a-days." Risk of heat stroke or cardiac arrest, dehydration, strains, and sprains. From the most severe to the most minor injuries, coaches hope the ban will allow them to carry a healthier team into the season.
Indiana head coach Tom Allen is supportive of the rule. “I think it can be a great teaching tool. I think, as an educator and a teacher, I like what those can bring and give us. I think we can get more prepared doing that than we did getting out of another two-hour practice where guys are kind of dreading anyways,” Allen said at Media Day in Chicago last week. More rest can often translate to being more prepared.
Jim Harbaugh likened the reduction in contact practice and high intensity conditioning to the absence of sleep deprivation in other fields. “Residents in hospitals don't do sleep deprivation anymore. Pilots have to sleep ten hours, I think, before each flight. It's just everybody is doing it that way. Even the military doesn't have sleep deprivation and three-a-days, et cetera. So I'm all for it. And they get a day a week of rest. I think everybody deserves that. Especially people that are playing a sport like football or training in high intensity type of sport. I think the body does need a day of rest and recovery,” Harbaugh explained during Big Ten media days.
Logical reasoning from a notoriously hot-headed individual is a telling sign that the ban should, and will, be universally accepted. The importance of rest is directly related to work performance and general health. Be it a desk job, in football, or in the military, rest and recovery are vital components to sustained success. On the surface, it’s a no-brainer to integrate this principle into college football.
While there are obvious reasons to justify the ban of two-a-days, some traditionalists have concerns regarding how college football teams will make up for “lost” time. A reactionary outlook on the ban could begin with a focus on inherently less practice time. If practice makes perfect, then one may deduce less practice time equates to a lesser chance at achieving perfection. However, a rational viewpoint accepts that perfections it unattainable. To qualm the worries of those conflicted by the ban, look no further than the rapid voluntary demise of two-a-days. According to an Associated Press survey, more than 75 percent of 89 FBS teams stated they occasionally conducted multiple practices on the same day last offseason. However, in nearly all of these cases, teams ensured the second practice within a given day excluded or had limited contact.
Most teams will not have to drastically restructure their schedules to adjust to the rule. Tom Allen said, “it’s caused a lot of discussion. I described it to our staff, “you have so many days you can practice, right? You get 29 practices before you play your first game. You never used all of those in the past anyway, for the most part and we rarely had two-a-days.” It does not appear that the rule change will significantly impact Indiana University football.
In case you were wondering how Tom Allen’s summer schedule will differ Kevin Wilson’s summer, Allen offered some clarification: “If you go back and look at our schedule a year ago, we never put pads on twice in the same day. We’d go a full practice in the morning and usually we call it spiders in the afternoon the days we practiced twice. Which is helmets and then the little padding underneath your jersey, so it wasn’t even shoulder pads.”
Hoosier players will be in 'Spiders' more this fall with the elimination of two-a-days. Image: Sammy Jacobs HoosierHuddle.com
How will teams adapt? Harbaugh offered a simple answer: “There's no two-a-days anymore. Two-a-days are gone. There are no more two-a-days. So schedule all one-a-days. So it's been rather simple, even the other time-demand rules -- 21 extra days off for the football players within the semesters.” Schools have been forced to adapt to rule changes for decades. Harbaugh continued, “already planning for them. Easily implemented. Those are done. So schedule's made. We're starting. Next Monday will be our first day of practice and very much looking forward to it.” Blunt, but straight to the point.
There are some obvious solutions teams will use to compensate for “lost” time. Some football teams, like Michigan, will begin fall camp a week earlier than usual. Others, like Indiana, will implement NFL-style walk throughs. Allen described his strategy, “we have had a lot of meetings about it, talked to a lot of the NFL guys about it, because we are kind of using their model of their walk throughs which we are calling jog throughs when the ball is involved and you just have to change how you did it.” Allen added more detail in saying, “You basically replace those four practices that we had, four or five of those spiders with what we are going to call ‘jog throughs’, which is an NFL model where you have a ball, but you can’t go full-speed. That’s the new rule the NCAA has given us. Even though you eliminate (two-a-days), you had eight of those hour-long jog throughs to really reinforce.”
Some fans may question Tom Allen’s reluctance to being fall camp early, but he thoroughly justified his reasoning. He based his decision on the theory of diminishing returns and placed emphasis on caring for his players. Straying away from militaristic coaching strategies, Allen explained, “We started talking about it as a team one day in the team meeting and you should’ve seen the look on their faces when we talked about the idea of just having a week more of fall camp. I mean it was not going to go over very good. We are not coming in early at all, but we are going to maximize those jog throughs and make them extremely productive.”
This idea makes sense during a time in society where being overworked doesn’t produce optimal results. Along with the players, Allen doesn’t want to wear out himself or his staff. “I didn’t want to bring our guys in early. I felt like if you bring them in a week early, fall camp is already a grind. Even as a coach, you’re always glad when it’s over. I’m like ‘we have to do that for another week?’ I just feel like it’s a lot of diminishing returns. It’s interesting because I knew that would be the case for our guys.” Indiana football fans have seen firsthand how well Allen has connected with his players. Perhaps most notably, Allen kept the incoming recruiting class intact despite the departure of several key positional coaches.
The absence of two-a-days likely won’t inhibit Indiana’s chances of breaking through. One could argue that the introduction of “jog throughs” and more time spent in the film room could provide even more benefit than two-a-day contact practices. The NCAA is optimistic that the ban will reduce preseason concussion statistics. Coaches and players obviously hope for the same results, but they may also see a shrinkage in soft tissue injuries. We may see Indiana carry a much healthier squad into the upcoming seasons. Teams will be forced to focus more on player health, injury prevention, rest, and recovery.
Luckily, as Tom Allen mentioned, Indiana won’t have to change very much about their practice routine. In fact, it appears both Allen and his players are fully on board with the change. It’s refreshing to have a head coach and team unite over potentially controversial legislation. Tom Allen and other Big Ten coaches expressed little to no qualms with the ban. Now all we can do is wait and see whether it improves the overall health of college football teams.