More and more teams are doing less and less tackling to the ground in Fall practices than ever before. 85 scholarship limit, the fear of concussion policies and outcomes and a general desire to keep your most valuable players healthy and ready to go for the season are cited as reasons why less hitting is happening.
Having watched Cal fall camps annually for 20+ years, I can tell you the drop off is dramatic. Dykes teams hit the least by a fair margin and this camp saw tackling to the group in only 4-5 sessions.
What are folks thoughts on whether that is a great thing given our need for depth and health or whether our defensive woes might be exacerbated by the lack of tackling and hitting?
I will note that living near Stanford, I get a front row view of Harbaugh and now Shaw's approach which includes a LOT more hitting and tackling. That's not an argument for it being a good thing but just a contrast in styles. Note that even coaches who prefer to hit a lot (e.g. Todd Graham, Chris Peterson) are doing less of it now than they did 5 years ago but likely more than Dykes does.
I wonder if our schedule is part of the reason we took this approach? The notion that we will do at least one if not two sessions this week before Grambling and let the game help us establish toughness and good tackling habits (including having game film to use as a teaching tool) in lieu of doing a bunch of hitting in camp.
Having watched Cal fall camps annually for 20+ years, I can tell you the drop off is dramatic. Dykes teams hit the least by a fair margin and this camp saw tackling to the group in only 4-5 sessions.
What are folks thoughts on whether that is a great thing given our need for depth and health or whether our defensive woes might be exacerbated by the lack of tackling and hitting?
I will note that living near Stanford, I get a front row view of Harbaugh and now Shaw's approach which includes a LOT more hitting and tackling. That's not an argument for it being a good thing but just a contrast in styles. Note that even coaches who prefer to hit a lot (e.g. Todd Graham, Chris Peterson) are doing less of it now than they did 5 years ago but likely more than Dykes does.
I wonder if our schedule is part of the reason we took this approach? The notion that we will do at least one if not two sessions this week before Grambling and let the game help us establish toughness and good tackling habits (including having game film to use as a teaching tool) in lieu of doing a bunch of hitting in camp.
