Bagnoli: no drastic changes under new Ivy practice rules

Regardless of whether it is the preseason or the regular season, Penn football continues to make strides toward concussion prevention.

In an effort to reduce the number of concussive hits in the Ancient Eight, the League announced this summer that it would limit its football teams to two full-contact practices a week. This measure, which calls for three less full-contact sessions than permitted by the NCAA, was laid out in a 21-page report accepted by Ivy presidents on July 20.

“I think in the first year we initiated, I’m not sure we’re going to see any real tangible differences,” Penn coach Al Bagnoli said. “But if you’re a freshman, and you carry it through for your career, it gets to be significant.”

Bagnoli has made three changes to the Quakers’ 29-day preseason regiment in order to adhere to this new regulation.

First, Bagnoli and his staff eliminated full contact in two consecutive practices, altering the Quakers’ two-a-day practice schedule to five total.

“If we had a doubles day, we’d pick one of the two, usually the morning, that would be full equipment contact,” he said. The afternoon practice would then have no live contact.

Additionally, the Red and the Blue shifted its Thursday routine to include a mandatory shoulder-pads only workout — eliminating yet another day of full contact from the schedule.

Finally, Bagnoli and staff have taken every fourth practice day out of 12 and mandated helmets and shorts practice as opposed to pads and helmets.

“We’ve done those three things with the intent of trying to reduce the wear and tear, the gradual hits that seem innocent but overtime accumulate and cause some issues,” Bagnoli said.

In addition to changing preseason practice schedules around the league, the new rule also mandates time dedicated to concussion education, which came in the form of an educational video from the NCAA.

“That was a video that talked about the signs of concussions,” Bagnoli said. “That was done in the first two days of meetings along with the trainers.”

While Penn football’s regular season is largely unaffected in 2011, the hope is that this change will have a positive impact over time.
“It’s not going to happen in short-term,” Bagnoli said. “It’s got to be over an extended period of time.”

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