How do you know when someone’s safer helmet technology looks promising? When you’ve got Steve Shaw saying stuff like this:
SEC officiating coordinator Steve Shaw was present as well and, after hearing the presentation, told Sicking, “We’ve got to get these helmets to everybody and not have a high school worry, ‘What if I break three face masks? I can’t afford that technology.’”
An SEC official saying damn the cost, full speed ahead? Whoa.
Let’s get moving on this, boys.
Get The Picture 
wonders what happens when player safety spending meets academic spending on the college campus.
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Right questions wrong locale. High School
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+1
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Foreseeable injury plus inherently dangerous activity. Did I just hear someone paging Mrs. Palsgraf?
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A Thin Skull Indeed.
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These CBS links still don’t work for me. I’m not sure what the issue is.
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http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/writer/jon-solomon/25095305/top-auto-racing-safety-engineer-takes-a-crack-at-safer-football-helmets sales that help I had to search for it.
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Same thing, but thanks
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I hope he is successful in his work.
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If that is the way Steve Shaw sees it them it is likely wrong.
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Well written and interesting article. Glad to see folks that are interested in improving the odds against concussions.
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Good article. All it takes is money. Autos could be made much safer, but would be more expensive. People would not want to pay $75,000 for a car even if it saved 10,000 lives a year. The helmets would have to be available to youth football also. The younger the player, the greater the risk of brain injury. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
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I don’t want to spoil a good article but I’m sure the Huans device on the drivers helmets are responsible for the drivers not being killed. I watched Dale Earnhart die and it did not look like a very bad wreck. He broke his neck when it was thrusted forward on impact. The device holds the driver’s head in place and won’t allow for the whip like movement. That being said the new walls are a great deal safer than hitting the concrete ones. I thought the guy that designed the Huan’s was working on football helmets too. Also why do more players not wear the horse collar pads. I always thought they worked to stop the head from snapping backward. I hope whoever gets the design right makes a lot of money, because without something happening American Football, as we know it, is not gong to be around.
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Anybody have a direct link? Now the CBS links aren’t working for me.
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I don’t understand it …the CBS links work on all the other blogs.
😉
JK. I use Firefox & Windows 7. I’ve never had a problem
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Youth football should be 7 on 7 flag until middle school. 8 year olds in pads makes no sense to me.
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“Sicking believes helmets should be designed by position. For example, he said offensive linemen who take 40 to 50 hits per game at lower speeds shouldn’t be wearing the same high-energy helmet as a wide receiver who gets blown up by a defensive back.”
Haven’t thought about that. Interesting…
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The article talks about watching 400 hits from Alabama football games. I wonder if one of those was Quinton Dial’s vicious head shot to Aaron Murray in the 2012 SECCG.
Interesting article … everyone across the game needs to make sure they increase safety for head injuries. Coaches have a responsibility to teach fundamentals. Officials have the responsibility to enforce the rules and to not tolerate dirty play. Players have an obligation to each other to play a violent game responsibly. Administrators need to open the check books not for IPFs, nutrition centers, and consultants but for real technological advances to keep the sport we all love viable.
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Liked the way you worked both “Quinton Dial’s vicious head shot to AM” and “player have an obligation to play the game responsibly” into one comment. Why would you have a penalty called “unnecessary roughness” in the book and not call it on Dial? It happened in front of a referee, well away from the action, and was deliberately vicious. But the SEC saw nothing worth penalizing, on the field, and upon review by the brilliant puppet, Mr. Steve Shaw. That hit was indefensible, and it wouldn’t have mattered if it were our guy hitting their QB. And it came in the same game where we were called for a hit on McElroy.
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The hit on McElroy was marginal. The only reason it was called was McElroy’s flop and then the waving about the hit. Tree could have leveled him and pulled up.
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