Big 12 teams will now only allow two days per week of contact

The Big 12 Media Days kicked off on Monday and safety was at the forefront of this year’s meeting.

In a move with safety in mind, the Big 12 announced in the opening minutes of Big 12 Media Days that the conference is limiting their schools to a total of two contact practices per week and that includes game days.

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This is one fewer than NCAA rules mandate so the conference is taking a proactive stance to try to preserve the health of their student-athletes. Safety and improving the long-term health of football players has been a constant effort from the little league levels to the NFL and it’s hard to disagree with a rule designed to help players maintain their health.

Detractors of the new rule will say the Big 12 doesn’t play defense anyway so this shouldn’t dramatically alter the landscape of the game and what we’re accustomed to on Saturday’s. They’ll say this is the next step toward the game becoming more soft and 7-on-7 is on the horizon, but let’s not overreact.

Think of all the collisions that will be avoided with one fewer practice each week and how those hits they aren’t taking add up as the season progresses.

We could see fresher bodies come the end of November because they haven’t been beating each other up all week in practice. We should see fewer concussions occurring in practices and fewer cases of players getting hurt in practice after a vicious hit/tackle/block.

I’m curious to see if other conferences will follow the lead of the Big 12 and restrict their number of contact days too.

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