No More Two-A-Day Practices?

The NCAA Sport Science Institute has recommended the end of two-a-day practices and limiting full-contact practices to one day per week. If two-a-days are eliminated, the preseason would be extended a week to make up for the lost practices. The NCAA must now create legislation to implement the changes.

31 thoughts on “No More Two-A-Day Practices?

  1. The question becomes, was Birdcage ever in an athletic practice in his entire lifetime outside of a mandatory grammar school gym class? Obvious answer is No.

  2. It’s interesting to look at the current distribution of all USC scholarships:

    https://t[DOT]co/Kk7EyzXm2v

    Like: there are no junior or senior QBs, RB and WR depth was very thin before this year (redshirts from last year count as freshman), and USC will lose very little next year in graduating seniors.

      • Steve, copy the URL to a text editor, replace “[DOT]” with “.”, copy the new URL to your web browser and paste in the URL area.

    • Thanks for that. Looks SC needs some running backs to stick around for their senior years.

      • Yep. Recruiting good players is hard and recruiting good players so you’re covered on all positions is really, really hard – especially with today’s youth of backing out at the last moment or not committing till the last day when it’s too late for the coaches to compensate. The chart shows how unbalanced the recruiting was the last 3 years and how Helton has perfect balance across all the positions.

  3. With the recent discussion of high school recruit’s star ratings, it is interesting to note that former Utah walk-on Stevie Tu’ikolovatu is ranked as a better NFL prospect that former 5-star Eddie Vanderdoes.

    • That liar Vanderdoes created a huge fiction about his supposedly dying grandmother so he could ditch his original signing school, ND. So he went to ucla where he finished as a flop and was clearly inferior to Stevie T. Just another little gutty who never did diddly with the bruins.

        • According to Birdcage, UTAH should have been thanking USC for taking Stevie T. off their hands. What a dolt.

        • Kinda makes the Utah coaches look foolish when they didn’t start Stevie and then he shines at USC (and beyond).

    • Did the Dr. Rachel Maddow of Inside USC fail to diagnosis Vanderdoes’ knee injury? He was a powerful inside rusher for the ruins applying constant pressure on Cody Kessler during the 2014 SC game. He blew he knee out in early September 2015. He was never the same after that.

  4. 2 a days are not the problem. The problem is eggheads who couldn’t make the team trying to fix something they don’t understand. Leave it alone

    • CTE is real, if they don’t find a way to mitigate it there may be no team to make. If 2 a days are related and stopping them means the game goes on, good.

      • Two a days have gone on for generations, but now are a bad thing? What they did was get you in shape.

        • Why don’t the do gooders limit soccer, ice hockey and lacrosse practices to limit CTE?

        • I actually liked two-a-days, especially the part where I put on my stiff, sweat-dried, smelly t-shirt from the morning practice under my shoulder pads (they were much bigger in the old days) for the afternoon practice.

          Every day was a great sense of accomplishment. We all ragged on about the tedious and tense two-a-days, but for some of us they were fun since we were in great shape before they ever started. Plus that meant that football was here, finally.

          • So true Jack. And when they were over you looked around and saw your team, the guys you went through it with together. That was a big way teams bonded.

        • 97 out of 101 NFL players brains that were tested had CTE. They are finding the cumulative effect of contact has a relation to it. I don’t think the workout is the issue, it’s contact.

      • i’m with you, H of T. Many of us who write on this post may have played high school or even college ball but it doesn’t compare to today’s game. Today’s game has players that are 200 lbs. that run 4.4s and 250 lb players that run 4.5s and this is the norm. In my day (high school football 1990) there just weren’t guys that were that big and that fast all over the field. I don’t care what anyone on this blog says, anecdotal stories will not hold up to fact that today’s players are bigger, faster and therefore more prone to concussions. Period.

        For once, I agree with the NCAA.

        • One unintended problem.We saw what happens when you limit full contact tackling when Lane Kiffin was head coach. The quality of fundamental football skills decreases.

  5. It’s probably a good thing for the teams that lack depth. Practicing with contact causes a lot of injuries as does long practices. Players get hurt more when they are tired. The big programs like Alabama don’t have to worry because they have 5 stars on the 2nd and 3rd teams but many of the other teams can’t afford to lose starters.

  6. Reducing practice time and contact time during the week is probably not the way to go.

    As a long-time member of a medical staff for a Catholic high school team with great football tradition, I have noted that, with reduced practice time and a greater reduction in full contact practice, the players show poorer technique in tackling on Friday nights because of lack of practice time with live contact…. Seems like there have been more injuries the last couple of years. I know that we want to protect the kids, but I think the emphasis should be in not using the head as a weapon during blocking and tackling. This is why you have some observers speculating that removing or reducing the size of the face mask might reduce injuries on the field because of a player’s sense of self-preservation.

  7. When I played in high school, the first week we had two a days. The next week we had four practices each day for five days and then a big scrimmage on Saturday.

    To hear the NCAA wussyise fall practice to one practice a day is too Politically Correct for me. You need the two a days just for game condition, speed of the game, and practice.

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