David Shaw believes hitting and tackling in practice are necessary for building a physical football team.
This week coaches in the Ivy League voted unanimously to ban full-contact practice during the regular season in addition to their already strict rules against full-contact practices in the spring and preseason.
Asked about this new policy, Shaw, whose Stanford Cardinal finished No. 3 in the country last season, had a strong opinion. He believes contact is necessary during spring football.
“Once we start the season, I don’t think anyone in college football tackles. Nobody tackles anymore. But I tell you, it’s vital in spring football,” Shaw told “The Herd with Colin Cowherd.” “It’s vital teaching our guys to tackle, it’s vital to teach guys how to be tackled. That’s as much as anything — how do you go down? How do you brace yourself for the ground and how do you hit the ground? Those are things that you learn. You can’t imagine how to do it, you have to learn how to do it. It’s vital to teach those things in spring football. If you don’t teach young guys how to do it physically, you can’t count on them game day.”
Shaw, whose teams are known for being physical, was asked whether tough teams could be built without tough practices.
“No. Impossible. It’s impossible,” said Shaw. “I’m looking at our cover page from our practice last night and the majority of our practices, all of them, are teaching. They are fast, but there’s not a lot of contact. There’s a lot of individual time. There’s a lot of skelly time. There’s a lot of individual instruction time. But there’s gonna be a 12-15 play team period where we are going hit each other, we’re going to push each other around, there’s going to be some contact. Because that’s how you play the game.
“It’s funny too, you and I know a lot of guys that coach and play in the NFL, and the thing that I’ve heard really over the last three years, which is the off seasons have been better physically for the players, which is a great thing. But I’ve heard a lot of guys also, players included, that say ‘guys, it might be better if we hit maybe just a little bit more here and there just because I’ve got a rookie linebacker who doesn’t know how to fill the gap. In order for me to do my job, he’s got to do his job.’
“Tackling in the NFL has gotten worse in the last few years. There does need to be a balance, and I’m all for it. As a conference, PAC-12-wise, two years ago, we were one of the first ones to say, ‘Hey, here’s how we’re limiting contact. Here’s how we’re specifying how we’re gonna tackle and not tackle.’ And I think we were very conscientious in that, in trying to make sure that this game is played as safely as possible, but doggone it, this is a contact sport. And people are gonna pay their money, they want to see great football. And great football involves big-time linebackers going and hitting guys, tackling guys, and running backs who know how to avoid that, and when they do get tackled, how do they drag a guy three or four more yards and get the first down. I hate to take the football out of football.”
Shaw may think it’s fine to avoid contact during the season to keep his players fresh, but it’s clear he believes the contact is necessary to prepare a team for the future.
Shaw’s Cardinal have gone 54-14 since he took over the program from Jim Harbaugh after the 2010 season.
