Block in BIG 10 Championship

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by Texas Aggie

That's correct, but the point he made, and its the same one I made earlier, is that this type of block will soon be illegal.

What is this "type" of block? A violent one? A shoulder block? A block where the primary point of contact is above the numbers on the uniform?

Once you get the players up to a certain speed, there's no way to make any block at a certain point without its being violent. If the peel back blocker had slowed down, he'd've simply missed the block or been using his hands illegally on the opponent's back. If he'd left his feet to make a lower block, chances are fairly good he'd've made the kind of contact that, while possibly legal under the rules he was playing by, is complained about as dangerous to the opponent's knees.

A few months ago I put together for our 12U team a drill that involved players running at an angle to each other, wherein one possible outcome was a hit like that. The players weren't going as fast as these, and because they knew the parameters of the drill, they were not caught off guard, but I did expect some hits to look approximately like that, and one or two did.