Texas Injuries to Major Contributors or Starters

[texbound 1,355]

Josh Thompson - Foot - Read that he will have screws inserted and will be done for the year.  Can likely use a RS for this year

Caden Sterns - Knee??- Not sure what is going on, but I'm expecting the worst and hoping for the best.  Either way I suspect he will be out for extended time (possibly the rest of the year)  Silver lining is that he too can use a RS year (I think).

Jalen Green - Dislocated shoulder - likely out for 4-8 weeks (unless his name is Billingsly and he plays for Odessa Permian in 1986).

Jordan Whittington - Groin surgery - May be back for OU, but likely the following week, according to the initial timetable given of 4 weeks after surgery.  Probably an additional week or 2 for conditioning and strengthening.

Demarvion Overshown - sounds like he will be back for WVU

BJ Foster - Also sounds like he will be back for WVU

Collin Johnson - Likely back for WVU

Kirk Johnson - Shoulder - Back for WVU

Daniel Young - back

Keondre Coburn - Returned to previous game.  Will start/play against WVU

D'Shawn Jamison - Returned to previous game.  Will start/play against WVU.

 

Who did I miss?

 

[UTfish 670]

Several of our board members have bruised hands from banging their fist on the coffee table, but they should be back for WV. 

[primal defense 3,244]

 

The one issue I had when UT hired Tom Herman was the way he prepares his team. I'm talking about his belief that in order to build tough teams they have to have lots of hitting in practice. I don't question the effectiveness of the practice. Darrell Royal had the same belief. However, there were two differences between then and now. In DKR's day lineman weighted 250-275 lbs so the hits today have more impact. The second reason was Coach Royal didn't have the scholarship restrictions that Herman has today.

 

The more hits a player takes during practice or a game increases the odds that a player will get hurt during the season. During Herman's second year at UH he lost two games at SMU, and Navy. One game he had 3 OL out and in another Orlando had a number of defensive players out. I understand if we have a normal of amount of injuries since football is a violent game. However, if we have abnormal amount then I blame Herman. We have already entered the season with only one healthy running back and he was banged up for LSU. I don't consider having seven players go out a game normal unless it's an Ed Orgeron  coached team.

 

Mike Gundy does not believe in the extra hitting and his record shows he knows what he is doing. I was listening to ESPN and they were talking about Dartmouth and what they are doing. My hope is since Herman is smart guy he will figure out as Texas coach to prepare his team to be tough without beating his team up during the year. I would hate that we will look back at the way Herman's prepares his team the same way we look at coaches wouldn't give their players water breaks back in the old days.

 

This is what Dartmouth is doing. I would think UT could afford it.

 

 

How a Robot Football Player Will Prevent Concussions

Related Links

• Tackling Concussions
• Football Robots Start Practicing with 49ers
• Robots are invading NFL training camps
• Steelers using robotic tackling dummies during workouts
• By reducing concussions, Ivy Leaguers' dummy could help save football
• Ivy League Moves to Eliminate Tackling at Football Practices
• Stephen Colbert Tackles the Dartmouth Football Dummy
• Tackling Goes High-Tech at Dartmouth With New Dummies
• Dartmouth Football Kicks Off High-Tech Season

IEEE Spectrum

September 29, 2016

By Elliot Kastner

 

          Share

During practice, the MVP robot can stand in for American football players and take the tackles

During practices, American football coaches typically stay on the sidelines, grim-faced, as they order their players through drills. But during an afternoon this past May, in the cavernous training facility for the Pittsburgh Steelers, head coach Mike Tomlin couldn’t resist getting in on the action. As a human-size robot sped over the artificial turf, the grinning coach ran onto the field and tackled it.

The MVP, or Mobile Virtual Player, was designed to take precisely this kind of hit—the sort of jarring blow that, inflicted repeatedly, can injure the brains of human players. American football has been rocked by controversy over the last decade, as it has become clear that the repeated collisions inherent to the sport are giving players concussions and sometimes causing debilitating and permanent brain trauma. In response, the U.S. National Football League (NFL) has altered rules and contributed millions to medical research. Meanwhile, the same head-injury concerns have found even greater resonance in college and youth football. Doctors, politicians, and parents are asking an urgent question: If these smashing impacts begin when players are young, what will be the cumulative effect after many years?

In 2013, I was part of a team of undergraduate engineering students at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, N.H., that sought a technological solution to this problem. We wanted to invent a robotic tackling dummy that could move like a real player and take the hits during practice sessions. By serving as a realistic stand-in, we figured, a robot would reduce player-on-player impacts during tackling drills, when many head injuries occur. We aimed to build a zippy padded robot that could be knocked down by a powerful linebacker and immediately pop back up, ready for the next player’s charge.

The path from a college lab to an NFL gym wasn’t smooth. But after years of hard work, I’m now director of R&D for a tech startup, also called MVP, that’s further developing the bot. We’ve partnered with a sports equipment company to manufacture commercial units, and our first batch rolled off the line in August. Over the past few months we distributed those robots to customers on our waiting list, which included NFL teams and some of the top college football teams in the country.

For that visit in May to the Steelers’ training facility we brought a beta version of the MVP. I’m proud to say that after a two-week tryout, it made the cut: The Steelers took two of our new production units, at US $8,000 apiece.

As we’ve watched how coaches use our robots, we’ve realized that the MVP can be more than just a tackling target. With more development, it could stand in for any player and take part in complicated plays. And though each MVP is now steered by remote control, we’re experimenting with ways to make them more autonomous. We can even imagine a futuristic football practice in which players jog onto the field and find an entire robotic team waiting for them on the line of scrimmage.

Coach in Control: Dartmouth football coach Eugene Teevens steers the robot through maneuvers so players can practice tackling. Photo: Nathaniel Welch

“I love the game of football, but I love my players more,” said Eugene “Buddy” Teevens, coach of the Dartmouth football team, while testifying this past May at a U.S. congressional hearing on concussions in youth athletics. Despite increased attention on the issue, a recent study found that concussions are still on the rise among adolescents and young adults in the United States. Teevens, a leading voice for player safety, went before the committee to describe his radical response [PDF] to this crisis.

Dartmouth has a storied tradition of football dating back to 1876, and its team has won 18 Ivy League championships. So Teevens shocked the football world at the start of the 2011 season when he announced a complete ban on tackling at practice. Players could hit padded tackling sleds, but not each other. To put it bluntly, the players, fans, and other coaches all thought he was crazy.

They don’t anymore. Dartmouth has had winning football seasons every year since Teevens instituted the ban. But the coach kept wishing that he could safely approximate game conditions in practice sessions, allowing his defensive players to chase and tackle elusive runners. So in 2013 he brought a challenge to Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering. Could students come up with a technology that would let players practice their tackling skills without injuring each other?

I was well positioned to help out. I’d been a defensive lineman under Teevens since arriving at Dartmouth in 2009 to study engineering, and I’d experienced the bruising toll of live practice drills. So I joined forces with Quinn Connell, now MVP’s director of engineering, and two other students, and we made Teevens’s challenge our senior-year project. We aimed to build a fast-moving robot that could realistically simulate a football player and withstand repeated tackles, and we promised to deliver it to the coach in six months. That goal, we soon discovered, was a bit too ambitious.

The controller has a trigger and a wheel to manage forward propulsion and direction. Photo: Nathaniel Welch

Our original idea was to build a robot that would roll on a central ball so it could move quickly in any direction, mimicking a human player’s unpredictable runs. To keep our bot upright while in motion, we considered copying “ballbots” that use sensors and software to balance themselves. But we soon saw a problem with that approach. Players were supposed to knock down our dummy, and they shouldn’t be fighting a robot that’s actively trying to stay upright. So we simply added passive stabilizers, ringing the base with steel tubing that lightly skimmed over the ground while the robot rolled along.

We did build several prototypes using ball drives, but they brought other problems. We had trouble generating the right amount of traction in two places: between the ball and the small internal drivetrain wheels that controlled its spin, and also between the ball and the ground. While we scratched our heads, we looked at the next engineering challenge.

It was a tricky one. For the robot to be truly useful at a drill session it had to immediately pop up after each tackle, ready to be taken down by the next player. We used computer models to find a shape with the right center of gravity, ending up with something resembling a Weeble, the roly-poly children’s toy. We poured green foam into a mold to get the form we wanted—a human-height cone with a rounded base—and added big chunks of steel as ballast. Unfortunately, those additions made it too heavy to drive.

As the 2013 academic year came to a close, we rushed to finish our assignment. We added an off-the-shelf radio communications system to steer the bot via remote control, and we hooked in jumper cables to power the robot with the car battery taken from Connell’s Subaru. The robot technically fulfilled its design specifications, but we had to admit that we’d failed to build a truly functional prototype.

Our dummy spent the next year getting kicked from one storage space to another. In the fall semester of 2014, I began a master’s program in biomedical engineering at Dartmouth, while my classmate Connell left the United States for a job. We still believed in our project, but we had no time to work on it. I stashed the prototype in various lab spaces in the engineering building before finally moving it to my former fraternity house, where I parked it in a closet next to a stack of empty beer kegs. Then, in May 2015, I got a phone call from my girlfriend. She was parking her car near the frat house and spotted our big green dummy sticking out of a dumpster.

I raced over to rescue it, and as we heaved the rusty thing into her car I remembered how Connell and I had promised Coach Teevens a working device. I called Connell, who was then teaching at an outdoor education company in Colombia, and we decided to spend the summer working full time on the project. We launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise the modest sum of $5,000, and a handful of generous alumni matched that amount. If we didn’t have a working prototype by the summer’s end, we agreed, we’d put the project to rest once and for all.

Connell came back to campus, and we got to work. Though we’d both studied mechanical engineering, we didn’t need EE degrees to recognize that a lead-acid car battery was a poor fit for our project. We needed something lightweight with enough juice to move a human-size dummy quickly around the field. For inspiration, we looked to the U.S. TV show “BattleBots,” where contestants build powerful yet compact robots. We tried many different batteries and setups, with plenty of failures: More than once we left the football field with smoking wreckage when a drive system burned through wires or damaged the batteries. Eventually, though, we found a lithium battery that suited our robot.

Our biggest goal that summer was to improve the ball drive. We tried many different air-filled balls, and we turned out dozens of intricate components on the engineering school’s 3D printer as we tried to get better traction between the drivetrain wheels and the ball. We eventually developed a housing mechanism where the ball was held in place with sprung casters, which kept it tensioned against the drive wheels. But those casters gave the dummy less clearance, limiting it to hard surfaces or smooth turf.

MVP in the NFL: Players from the Pittsburgh Steelers work out with several robots in their practice facility. Photo: Molly Stifler

By August, we had a robot that we could drive slowly straight down the field, but it still had lousy traction on grass and tended to drift rather than turn sharply. The pressure was on: Dartmouth’s football training camp was only weeks away, and we were also running out of budget. We were working around the clock and living on ramen noodles, but we still didn’t have a prototype that could meet Coach Teevens’s expectations.

It was time for something radical. So we gave up on the idea of having a perfectly omnidirectional robot and abandoned the ball drive, deciding to try wheels instead. Connell spent one long night with a computer-aided-design program to make a new model, and then we hit the machine shop. We took apart old tackling dummies to salvage their foam and roughed out a shape, then hastily installed an electric motor and the electronics. When we had everything put together, at the end of a late-night work session in mid-August, we took the robot for a spin around the deserted lab. We found to our surprise that it moved well—really well.

We loaded the dummy into the back of a truck, and during our drive to the football field we crossed paths with a Dartmouth rugby player who volunteered to help out with the first test. While Connell remotely steered the speedy robot in loops and zigzags around the field, our expert tackler repeatedly ran after the bot and took it down. We were delighted to see it pop up after each hit, ready for more action.

Later that day, our rugby friend tweeted a 30-second video of the test run, and something amazing happened: It went viral. Within 24 hours the video had been viewed 1 million times, and coaches and players were clamoring to buy the bot. When our heads stopped spinning, we realized that our robot could be much more than a school project.

On opening day of Dartmouth’s 2015 football camp, two prototype MVPs joined the burly players in their first tackling drill. Connell and I watched as huge defensive linemen took turns smashing into our padded robots, wondering if the electronics would hold up to this abuse. We had cause for concern: About 3 minutes into the drill, an MVP popped up from a hit with one wheel running continuously at full speed, making the robot spin around in tight circles. I hustled it off the field, and when we pulled it apart we discovered that a battery lead had been jarred loose and, astoundingly, connected itself directly to a motor lead, entirely bypassing the electronics platform controlling the voltage. After that incident we installed robust fuses, connectors, and fail-safes to prevent glitches that could cause robots to go rogue.

Engineers and entrepreneurs: The author

and his MVP cofounder, Quinn Connell, turned their senior-year engineering project into a startup after a video of their tackling robot went viral. Photo: Nathaniel Welch

The rest of the 2015 season came and went. Every day of practice the Dartmouth football team put the MVPs through their paces, and every night our team replaced bolts and repaired broken parts. Our final prototype weighed about 70 kilograms (150 pounds) and had a top speed of 32 kilometers per hour (20 miles per hour), which is fast enough to mimic a human player. It could rotate in place, turn on the proverbial dime, and weave between obstacles. We were pretty proud of it.

Still, turning a prototype into a commercial product seemed daunting. So we established a partnership with Rogers Athletic Co., a leading manufacturer of football equipment based in Clare, Mich., and the company built six beta units that we brought to spring training camps in 2016. We visited NFL teams such as the Steelers and the Ravens, top college teams like Michigan State, and a variety of high school teams.

That tour taught us plenty about the machine. While the robot rolled easily across artificial turf and well-manicured grass, rougher playing surfaces caused problems. At multipurpose high school fields, our MVP had trouble moving smoothly over the dirt in the baseball diamond’s running paths, particularly when the ground was muddy. We’re now addressing this traction challenge. We also worked through critical choices on materials for our components, switching out one Teflon-like material when we realized it was expanding in the heat of a practice session in Florida. American football is a tough sport, and its robotic players must be tough, too—the MVP should work through snow, ice, mud, rain, or scorching heat.

Sources: 2015 Injury Data, NFL, 2016 (top two charts); “Incidence of Concussion During Practice and Games in Youth, High School, and Collegiate American Football Players,” JAMA Pediatrics, 2015 (bottom)

It took a while to find the best remote control system for the robot. Coach Teevens had originally imagined steering a dummy with a joystick, and we tried that method, adapting off-the-shelf gear to our purposes. When that mechanism proved awkward, we tried two thumb controllers to manage the throttle and steering separately. This system was better, but the coaches still didn’t get the hang of it right away. We settled finally on a better two-part control system: a trigger that the user pulls to power the bot forward and a steering wheel to control its direction.

I’d like to reveal more technical details about the final design. But as a startup entering the competitive sports equipment industry with a novel new product, our company must protect its intellectual property. In August 2016 we distributed our first limited-release batch of commercial MVPs. We sold 25 of those units to high school, college, and NFL teams, and we’re planning a full release for January 2017.

Our challenge now is to make our dummies smarter. The current MVP is steered by someone on the sidelines, but coaches have asked if future robots can be programmed to move independently along their routes. For that kind of autonomy, the MVP will need an onboard operating system that uses localization and mapping to establish its position on the field. The OS could also support a local-area network that lets MVPs communicate with each other—potentially enabling us to field an entire robotic team, with MVPs working in concert to execute plays.

Some NFL and college coaches also want an MVP that logs data about tackles or running routes. While it would be relatively easy to add sensors to our robot, these extra electronics could make it too expensive for youth-level football programs with tight budgets. That’s a real concern for us, as our overarching goal is to protect all players and reduce the number of hits they take over their entire football careers. We’re now thinking of building different models to cater to different markets.

The need is greater than ever. American football is in jeopardy of losing a generation of participants because many parents have concluded that the game is too dangerous for their kids. But like Coach Teevens, many still love the sport and appreciate the life lessons it can teach. If the MVP allows young players to put on their helmets and take the field with a lot less risk, it will earn its title as most valuable player.

 

https://engineering.dartmouth.edu/news/how-a-robot-football-player-will-prevent-concussions

[Wayne 122]

I’m not trying to minimize the Dartmouth revolution here, but exactly how many national championships have they won in the big boy division. For that matter how many national championships, or for that matter conference championships, has Gundy won.

Coaches who like hard hitting practices include Saban and Meyer. Though I dislike each; their records speak for them. 

[dillohorn 2,040]

The injury situation has been serious for 3 years now and in part it has to be Herman's practice methods. Being the "most physical" team on the field is meaningless if the roster is on crutches standing on the sidelines.

[UTfish 670]

 

Good point, Dillo, but while I don't have any data to back it up but my highly questionable memory, I don't recall an excessive number of practice injuries caused by violent collisions. Some were freak non-contact injuries or preexisting conditions. Seems that most, by far, were in game conditions. 

Somewhere there should be a record of this for one of our statheads to dig up. Would like to know. 

[dillohorn 2,040]

3 minutes ago, UTfish said:

 

Good point, Dillo, but while I don't have any data to back it up but my highly questionable memory, I don't recall an excessive number of practice injuries caused by violent collisions. Some were freak non-contact injuries or preexisting conditions. Seems that most, by far, were in game conditions. 

Somewhere there should be a record of this for one of our statheads to dig up. Would like to know. 

Herman seems to bring up toughness every time he gets in front of a mike. I don't really know what goes on at practice.

[UTfish 670]

22 minutes ago, dillohorn said:

Herman seems to bring up toughness every time he gets in front of a mike. I don't really know what goes on at practice.

Agree. At that age I was 6' 4" and weighed all of 165#s soaking wet.  To hear him talk, after one of his practices with those behemoths they would have to measure me in two parts, each 3' 2". I was only half as tough as I thought I was. Lol

[primal defense 3,244]

On 9/23/2019 at 9:45 AM, Wayne said:

I’m not trying to minimize the Dartmouth revolution here, but exactly how many national championships have they won in the big boy division. For that matter how many national championships, or for that matter conference championships, has Gundy won.

Coaches who like hard hitting practices include Saban and Meyer. Though I dislike each; their records speak for them. 

It doesn't work that way. It's during the off season that Herman if he wanted to would look for difference ways to cut down on the hitting and still have a tough team.

 

That was the benefit of Rudy in the movie Rudy. Rudy was happy to get beat up every day in practice and since he didn't play it didn't matter.

 

We don't know how UT practices compare to Alabama or Clemson practices, but the more Herman can cut down on his players not getting hit the better.

 

As dillohorn said Being the "most physical" team on the field is meaningless if the roster is on crutches standing on the sidelines.

 

However, it may take another coach at another school competing for a NC to try it and having good results for other coaches to go along like Herman.

[North Texas Golfer 3,068]

Tell me, factually, how our injury situation compares to other teams. Until I know that, I can't say one way or the other that Tom's "methods" have anything to do with us having more injuries. Nor can anyone else for sure. 

[primal defense 3,244]

13 minutes ago, North Texas Golfer said:

Tell me, factually, how our injury situation compares to other teams. Until I know that, I can't say one way or the other that Tom's "methods" have anything to do with us having more injuries. Nor can anyone else for sure. 

Were up there.

Texas
Date	Pos	Player	Injury	Status
09/23/19	LB	Caleb Johnson	Transferred	is "?"
09/23/19	LB	Marcus Tillman Jr.	Knee	is out for season
09/23/19	WR	Al'Vonte Woodard	Ankle	is "?"
09/23/19	DB	Cade Sterns	Leg	is out indefinitely
09/23/19	WR	Collin Johnson	Hamstring	is "?"
09/23/19	DB	Demarvion Overshown	Neck	is "?"
09/23/19	DB	Jalen Green	Shoulder	is out indefinitely
09/23/19	DB	Josh Thompson	Foot	is out indefinitely
09/12/19	DB	B.J. Foster	Hamstring	is out indefinitely
09/02/19	RB	Jordan Whittington	Hernia	is out indefinitely
08/29/19	TE	Rob Cummins	Knee	is out indefinitely
08/27/19	WR	Joshua Moore	Suspension	is out indefinitely
08/23/19	TE	Cade Brewer	Concussion	is out indefinitely
08/23/19	RB	Daniel Young	Ankle	is out indefinitely
08/10/19	RB	Kirk Johnson	Shoulder	is out indefinitely

 

http://www.donbest.com/ncaaf/injuries/

[Wayne 122]

27 minutes ago, primal defense said:

It doesn't work that way. It's during the off season that Herman if he wanted to would look for difference ways to cut down on the hitting and still have a tough team.

 

That was the benefit of Rudy in the movie Rudy. Rudy was happy to get beat up every day in practice and since he didn't play it didn't matter.

 

We don't know how UT practices compare to Alabama or Clemson practices, but the more Herman can cut down on his players not getting hit the better.

 

As dillohorn said Being the "most physical" team on the field is meaningless if the roster is on crutches standing on the sidelines.

 

However, it may take another coach at another school competing for a NC to try it and having good results for other coaches to go along like Herman.

What doesn’t work that way?  I can’t tell what you are referring to. I can tell you that Saban and Meyer have physical practices in the off-season and during the season and that have won at a very high level. You mention Dartmouth and Ok St.  Ok St has won but it would be hard to argue that they have won at The Saban and Meyer level.

It would also be hard to argue that Ok St plays physical football. Ok St tries to finesse you because they don’t have the talent of those teams. 

[Wayne 122]

3 minutes ago, primal defense said:

Were up there.

Texas
Date	Pos	Player	Injury	Status
09/23/19	LB	Caleb Johnson	Transferred	is "?"
09/23/19	LB	Marcus Tillman Jr.	Knee	is out for season
09/23/19	WR	Al'Vonte Woodard	Ankle	is "?"
09/23/19	DB	Cade Sterns	Leg	is out indefinitely
09/23/19	WR	Collin Johnson	Hamstring	is "?"
09/23/19	DB	Demarvion Overshown	Neck	is "?"
09/23/19	DB	Jalen Green	Shoulder	is out indefinitely
09/23/19	DB	Josh Thompson	Foot	is out indefinitely
09/12/19	DB	B.J. Foster	Hamstring	is out indefinitely
09/02/19	RB	Jordan Whittington	Hernia	is out indefinitely
08/29/19	TE	Rob Cummins	Knee	is out indefinitely
08/27/19	WR	Joshua Moore	Suspension	is out indefinitely
08/23/19	TE	Cade Brewer	Concussion	is out indefinitely
08/23/19	RB	Daniel Young	Ankle	is out indefinitely
08/10/19	RB	Kirk Johnson	Shoulder	is out indefinitely

 

http://www.donbest.com/ncaaf/injuries/

How many of these were from practice?  I saw most of these in games. Should we not hit in games. Maybe we can play the Dartmouth tackle dummies. 

[primal defense 3,244]

9 minutes ago, Wayne said:

How many of these were from practice?  I saw most of these in games. Should we not hit in games. Maybe we can play the Dartmouth tackle dummies. 

It doesn't work that way Wayne. You can't separate the practice injuries from the game injuries. There is an accumulated effect.

[primal defense 3,244]

24 minutes ago, Wayne said:

What doesn’t work that way?  I can’t tell what you are referring to. I can tell you that Saban and Meyer have physical practices in the off-season and during the season and that have won at a very high level. You mention Dartmouth and Ok St.  Ok St has won but it would be hard to argue that they have won at The Saban and Meyer level.

It would also be hard to argue that Ok St plays physical football. Ok St tries to finesse you because they don’t have the talent of those teams. 

It would be nice for Herman to talk with Lincoln Riley and Dabo Sweeny they are competing for a NC and so far are able to keep their players healthy.

[UTfish 670]

Some on the list were not injuries. Caleb Johnson is transferring. Josh Moore is suspended. Cade Brewer was just under concussion protocol. Whittington had a preexisting condition. Hamstring injuries are usually non-contact - Collin Johnson and Foster. Ankle injuries are not normally the result of violent collisions, and if I remember right, Woodard was injured in a non-contact drill.

On that list, I think only Kirk Johnson, Daniel Young, Brewer and Overshown were hurt in practice.  

The rest, I believe, occurred during games. 

I hate the injuries too, but what's the answer?  Flag football? 

 

[Wayne 122]

40 minutes ago, primal defense said:

It doesn't work that way Wayne. You can't separate the practice injuries from the game injuries. There is an accumulated effect.

That’s total bs. A sprained knee is a sprained knee; it happens because you land awkwardly not because you hit someone hard in practice. If you separate a shoulder it occurs from the hit not from an accumulation of hits. 

If you don’t hit in a practice, you tackle like we did under Charlie. I don’t see near as many arm tackles, whiffs and attempted knock downs as we did before Herman...  Still happens but not much.  Clemson has a bunch of injuries; Alabama has a bunch of injuries; Ok State has a bunch of injuries. It’s a physical game played by big people  

I’m fine with taking targeting and blind side hits out of the game. But not training to hit in practice means they won’t do it in the game. 

If we want to make it 7 on 7, you don’t have to teach them to hit hard. 

[Wayne 122]

56 minutes ago, primal defense said:

It would be nice for Herman to talk with Lincoln Riley and Dabo Sweeny they are competing for a NC and so far are able to keep their players healthy.

Dabo has two guys out for the season.  Justyn Ross just missed a game with an injury.  Does ou have a defense?

[dillohorn 2,040]

3 hours ago, primal defense said:

Were up there.

Texas
Date	Pos	Player	Injury	Status
09/23/19	LB	Caleb Johnson	Transferred	is "?"
09/23/19	LB	Marcus Tillman Jr.	Knee	is out for season
09/23/19	WR	Al'Vonte Woodard	Ankle	is "?"
09/23/19	DB	Cade Sterns	Leg	is out indefinitely
09/23/19	WR	Collin Johnson	Hamstring	is "?"
09/23/19	DB	Demarvion Overshown	Neck	is "?"
09/23/19	DB	Jalen Green	Shoulder	is out indefinitely
09/23/19	DB	Josh Thompson	Foot	is out indefinitely
09/12/19	DB	B.J. Foster	Hamstring	is out indefinitely
09/02/19	RB	Jordan Whittington	Hernia	is out indefinitely
08/29/19	TE	Rob Cummins	Knee	is out indefinitely
08/27/19	WR	Joshua Moore	Suspension	is out indefinitely
08/23/19	TE	Cade Brewer	Concussion	is out indefinitely
08/23/19	RB	Daniel Young	Ankle	is out indefinitely
08/10/19	RB	Kirk Johnson	Shoulder	is out indefinitely

 

http://www.donbest.com/ncaaf/injuries/

That is scary.

[primal defense 3,244]

 

Bloody Tuesday doesn't have the same ring as Taco Tuesday.

The counterpoints to Texas HC Tom Herman’s ‘Bloody Tuesdays’

88

Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy thinks less physical may be better in practice. So does the Ivy League.

By Wescott Eberts@SBN_Wescott  Jan 18, 2017, 3:48pm CST

 

Soobum Im-USA TODAY Sports

When new Texas Longhorns head coach Tom Herman coached for the Houston Cougars, one of his staples was intensely physical practices known as “Bloody Tuesdays.”

“Our coaches throw the hardest stuff they can throw at them on a Tuesday and put them in the toughest positions on a Tuesday,” Houston head coach Tom Herman said. “We want to see them go really hard, play really physical, really fast and then we’ve got four days to correct the assignments.”

As the name suggests, those practices don’t happen in shells at half speed — full contact, full pads, full speed.

Herman believes that those practices help establish the team’s identity. Given his record against top opponents, it’s difficult to completely argue against those practices as helping instill the physicality that was a defining feature of those two Cougars teams.

“Our goal is, train harder and more physical than any program in the country,” Herman told ESPN last fall. “We like to think that we practice so hard that the games are easy."

However, it’s not the only way to go about things.

In Stillwater, Cowboys head coach Mike Gundy has been moving in an opposite direction — taking it easier on his players in an effort to keep them fresh.

Instead of using the allocated 20 hours of practice time per week, Gundy limits Oklahoma State players to practices that last no longer than an hour and 45 minutes with limited hitting and no swearing by the coaches. Meetings last no longer than 40 minutes.

“There’s only so many hits in their bodies, their heads, their necks, their shoulders,” Gundy said at the AFCA convention last week.

Likewise, Gundy’s research indicated that limited attention spans keep long meetings from having a high level of effectiveness.

The changes were instituted recently by the longtime Oklahoma State coach — prior to last season’s loss to Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl, Gundy pushed his team hard in practice in an effort to gain an edge in what he anticipated would be a physical game.

The approach didn’t work, as the Cowboys got pounded in the running game by the Rebels and lost by 28 points.

Gundy worried about the new approach in the lead up to playing Colorado in the Alamo Bowl this season, but it worked, perhaps helping to impact the 28-8 win that featured a reversal of the run-game trends from the Sugar Bowl.

Throughout the season, Gundy said that the team suffered from fewer injuries and was able to come back from deficits more often.

“It has to be fun,” Gundy said. “If it’s not fun for them, if their shoulders are hurting, if they’re worn out from fatigue, they’re not going to play hard.”

On the other hand, Herman’s teams at Houston suffered from significant injury issues, especially along the offensive line, perhaps contributing to late-season losses, including to UConn in 2015 and a regular season-ending loss to Memphis in 2016, in addition to two October losses following non-conference games against Oklahoma and Cincinnati.

In the Ivy League, the conference outlawed full-contact hitting in regular-season practices last spring, following in the steps of Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens, who hadn’t allowed tackling in practice for the previous five seasons.

Teevens, who has coached at major programs in the past, like Florida under Steve Spurrier, came to his conclusions after noticing that concussions tended to happen the most frequently during the spring and preseason camp and learned that Jeff Fisher’s St. Louis Rams didn’t tackle in the preseason.

The reduction of tackling raises questions about the ability to foster the culture of toughness that Herman is seeking through his Bloody Tuesdays. However, Teevens doesn’t believe that the reduction has an impact on the team’s toughness.

“My attitude is you won’t make a guy get tougher with hitting at practice,” he told CBSSports.com. “I think you can improve his tackling technique and assignment. I have guys that have become very capable tacklers who are not the toughest guys on the football team. Why? They practice it a lot more.”

Moreover, injuries, concussions, and missed tackles decreased at Dartmouth, with only two concussions during the 2015 season. By comparison, Houston players suffered six concussions during the 2016 preseason camp alone.

"It's like beating your head against a wall for two and a half hours,” middle linebacker Matt Adams said of Houston’s practices.

That might explain the concussions, though Herman is quick to argue that he isn’t a “heathen butcher” putting his players through a “meatgrinder.”

One reason for Dartmouth’s ability to survive the lack of live tackling in practice may have been the use of a “mobile virtual player” for tackling drills in addition to the usual stationary pads. That way, Teevens said, the Big Green actually tackle more than many other programs, it just isn’t players tackling each other.

And the change didn’t just result in reduced injuries — the 2015 season saw Dartmouth win the Ivy League crown for the first time in nearly two decades as the defense led the FCS in scoring and yards per play.

So there are are now at least two programs that have found success with this approach, which also considers the long-term consequences of human brains suffering so much impact.

Of course, Herman won’t apologize for the way that he coaches.

"I don't know that it has to [be the only way], but it's the one proven way so far,” he said last fall.

In terms of winning championships, he might be correct, but Gundy and Teevens are proving that there is another way to win, one that might even increase the odds of doing so by reducing injuries.

 

https://www.burntorangenation.com/2017/1/18/14312986/tom-herman-bloody-tuesdays-texas-longhorns-mike-gundy-practice

[Wayne 122]

27 minutes ago, primal defense said:

 

Bloody Tuesday doesn't have the same ring as Taco Tuesday.

The counterpoints to Texas HC Tom Herman’s ‘Bloody Tuesdays’

88

Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy thinks less physical may be better in practice. So does the Ivy League.

By Wescott Eberts@SBN_Wescott  Jan 18, 2017, 3:48pm CST

 

Soobum Im-USA TODAY Sports

When new Texas Longhorns head coach Tom Herman coached for the Houston Cougars, one of his staples was intensely physical practices known as “Bloody Tuesdays.”

“Our coaches throw the hardest stuff they can throw at them on a Tuesday and put them in the toughest positions on a Tuesday,” Houston head coach Tom Herman said. “We want to see them go really hard, play really physical, really fast and then we’ve got four days to correct the assignments.”

As the name suggests, those practices don’t happen in shells at half speed — full contact, full pads, full speed.

Herman believes that those practices help establish the team’s identity. Given his record against top opponents, it’s difficult to completely argue against those practices as helping instill the physicality that was a defining feature of those two Cougars teams.

“Our goal is, train harder and more physical than any program in the country,” Herman told ESPN last fall. “We like to think that we practice so hard that the games are easy."

However, it’s not the only way to go about things.

In Stillwater, Cowboys head coach Mike Gundy has been moving in an opposite direction — taking it easier on his players in an effort to keep them fresh.

Instead of using the allocated 20 hours of practice time per week, Gundy limits Oklahoma State players to practices that last no longer than an hour and 45 minutes with limited hitting and no swearing by the coaches. Meetings last no longer than 40 minutes.

“There’s only so many hits in their bodies, their heads, their necks, their shoulders,” Gundy said at the AFCA convention last week.

Likewise, Gundy’s research indicated that limited attention spans keep long meetings from having a high level of effectiveness.

The changes were instituted recently by the longtime Oklahoma State coach — prior to last season’s loss to Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl, Gundy pushed his team hard in practice in an effort to gain an edge in what he anticipated would be a physical game.

The approach didn’t work, as the Cowboys got pounded in the running game by the Rebels and lost by 28 points.

Gundy worried about the new approach in the lead up to playing Colorado in the Alamo Bowl this season, but it worked, perhaps helping to impact the 28-8 win that featured a reversal of the run-game trends from the Sugar Bowl.

Throughout the season, Gundy said that the team suffered from fewer injuries and was able to come back from deficits more often.

“It has to be fun,” Gundy said. “If it’s not fun for them, if their shoulders are hurting, if they’re worn out from fatigue, they’re not going to play hard.”

On the other hand, Herman’s teams at Houston suffered from significant injury issues, especially along the offensive line, perhaps contributing to late-season losses, including to UConn in 2015 and a regular season-ending loss to Memphis in 2016, in addition to two October losses following non-conference games against Oklahoma and Cincinnati.

In the Ivy League, the conference outlawed full-contact hitting in regular-season practices last spring, following in the steps of Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens, who hadn’t allowed tackling in practice for the previous five seasons.

Teevens, who has coached at major programs in the past, like Florida under Steve Spurrier, came to his conclusions after noticing that concussions tended to happen the most frequently during the spring and preseason camp and learned that Jeff Fisher’s St. Louis Rams didn’t tackle in the preseason.

The reduction of tackling raises questions about the ability to foster the culture of toughness that Herman is seeking through his Bloody Tuesdays. However, Teevens doesn’t believe that the reduction has an impact on the team’s toughness.

“My attitude is you won’t make a guy get tougher with hitting at practice,” he told CBSSports.com. “I think you can improve his tackling technique and assignment. I have guys that have become very capable tacklers who are not the toughest guys on the football team. Why? They practice it a lot more.”

Moreover, injuries, concussions, and missed tackles decreased at Dartmouth, with only two concussions during the 2015 season. By comparison, Houston players suffered six concussions during the 2016 preseason camp alone.

"It's like beating your head against a wall for two and a half hours,” middle linebacker Matt Adams said of Houston’s practices.

That might explain the concussions, though Herman is quick to argue that he isn’t a “heathen butcher” putting his players through a “meatgrinder.”

One reason for Dartmouth’s ability to survive the lack of live tackling in practice may have been the use of a “mobile virtual player” for tackling drills in addition to the usual stationary pads. That way, Teevens said, the Big Green actually tackle more than many other programs, it just isn’t players tackling each other.

And the change didn’t just result in reduced injuries — the 2015 season saw Dartmouth win the Ivy League crown for the first time in nearly two decades as the defense led the FCS in scoring and yards per play.

So there are are now at least two programs that have found success with this approach, which also considers the long-term consequences of human brains suffering so much impact.

Of course, Herman won’t apologize for the way that he coaches.

"I don't know that it has to [be the only way], but it's the one proven way so far,” he said last fall.

In terms of winning championships, he might be correct, but Gundy and Teevens are proving that there is another way to win, one that might even increase the odds of doing so by reducing injuries.

 

https://www.burntorangenation.com/2017/1/18/14312986/tom-herman-bloody-tuesdays-texas-longhorns-mike-gundy-practice

WhAt have they proven?  You can beat Colorado by 20 without physical contact in practices.  And lose to Miss St when you have physical practices. Whose defense scares you: ok st or Alabama?  Last year everyone beat the PAC 12. All the Ivy League follows the same rules. And I couldn’t tell you Dartmouth’s record, if you spotted me the record. 

[primal defense 3,244]

45 minutes ago, Wayne said:

WhAt have they proven?  You can beat Colorado by 20 without physical contact in practices.  And lose to Miss St when you have physical practices. Whose defense scares you: ok st or Alabama?  Last year everyone beat the PAC 12. All the Ivy League follows the same rules. And I couldn’t tell you Dartmouth’s record, if you spotted me the record. 

So according to you, Alabama is better than Okie State because of practice.  You seem to leave out the fact that Alabama has much better players than Oklahoma State throughout the years. Gundy's practice didn't seem to hurt him against Herman his first two years. So, maybe talent has something to do with Saban doing better than Gundy and not because of his practices. 

Oklahoma State recruiting 

2015 40th

2016  45th

2017 38th

2018 34th

2019 38th

Alabama recruiting

2015 1st

2016 1st

2017 1st

2018 5th

2019 1st

[Wayne 122]

39 minutes ago, primal defense said:

So according to you, Alabama is better than Okie State because of practice.  You seem to leave out the fact that Alabama has much better players than Oklahoma State throughout the years. Gundy's practice didn't seem to hurt him against Herman his first two years. So, maybe talent has something to do with Saban doing better than Gundy and not because of his practices. 

Oklahoma State recruiting 

2015 40th

2016  45th

2017 38th

2018 34th

2019 38th

Alabama recruiting

2015 1st

2016 1st

2017 1st

2018 5th

2019 1st

I’m not saying bama is better because of practice. I’m saying Gundy might sing a different tune if he had Bama’s talent and depth. He has neither and must protect the guys he does have. Because he doesn’t have the depth. But now he has a team that tries to outscore the other team because he can’t stop them from scoring. Sort of like the quintessential Big 12 team. Quintessential Bog 12 teams haven’t won a national title since 2006. But the SEC, Ohio State and  Clemson have. All of those teams have one thing in common they hit hard, they tackle well, and they’re deep. Oklahoma has outscored one of those teams once in an Ohio State down year. They’ve lost every other game against those power teams. Herman has beaten them.