All along, curious coaches from around the country descended on Norman to steal the Sooners' secrets. And thus the Oklahoma drill became one of the best examples of copycatting in football. By the time Wilkinson retired in , the drill had spread as far as Green Bay, where Vince Lombardi considered it an essential measure of manhood. While playing in Arkansas, Switzer ran it from both sides -- as a center and a linebacker for the Razorbacks -- and he employed it generously in his year coaching tenure in Norman, leading the Sooners to three more national titles.
That was the case with current Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops, who in was a scrawny true freshman defensive back at Iowa. On his first day of practice, Stoops struggled with the Hawkeyes' fancy spring-loaded tackling dummies and could feel the doubtful eyes of his teammates and coaches bearing down on him as the players lined up for the inaugural Oklahoma drill. When his turn came, Stoops stepped up, charged a large running back at full speed and planted him on his back. By the time his teammates finished mobbing him in celebration, Stoops had been transformed, he says, from self-doubting to dominant.
He went on to become a four-year starter at Iowa. When he took over the Sooners in , Stoops immediately reinstituted the drill. To a degree, it does connect us all. With this drill, you become a part of the group. Somewhere along the line, though, the price of admission devolved into something far more dangerous than Wilkinson ever intended. This head-to-head-collision interpretation became the norm in the NFL.
As the Raiders' veterans celebrated over his prostrate body, Long pulled himself to his feet, looked Shell in the eye and said, "Let's do it again. By the s, however, salary caps and the risk of injury to high-paid athletes made the Oklahoma cost-prohibitive for most NFL teams.
There are exceptions: In recent years, the Jaguars, Titans, Bengals and Falcons have been known to periodically dabble in the drill. The Bengals ran an especially gruesome version that allowed a yard running head start; the drill quickly became a fan favorite.
Almost overnight, the seductive thrill of watching players collide like rams started to feel like a cringeworthy exercise in macho stupidity. Yet while the NFL, for the most part, seems to have gotten the message, the Oklahoma remains as popular as ever in college. For every Dartmouth, where a coach like Buddy Teevens has minimized contact in practice, there are dozens of schools, such as Ohio State and LSU, that still run collision-heavy hitting drills.
And since taking over at Tennessee, Butch Jones has started many practices, including the Vols' recent spring scrimmage in front of 63, fans, with the Oklahoma and other hitting drills. Chris Nowinski, a former Harvard defensive tackle who is now an advocate for player safety and the co-founder of the Sports Legacy Institute, recently received an anonymous cellphone video from a practice at a successful Division I program.
At the beginning of the video, players are lined up a reasonable four yards apart. When the camera pans out, though, there's no ball carrier. Then the coach steps in and separates the combatants by several more yards, for no reason other than to increase the collision.
The team goes crazy without realizing exactly what it's cheering for. What's more troubling, however, is that the Oklahoma is still a mainstay among high school and peewee players, who are most vulnerable to brain injuries. Nerve cells in children's brains lack the coating, insulation and protection found in adult brains. This not only makes kids more susceptible to concussions but also makes repeat concussions exponentially more dangerous.
Kids also have disproportionately large, heavy heads and weaker necks that, compounded by the weight of a helmet, can hinder the control needed to avoid some concussions. This is why, in , Pop Warner outlawed head-on tackling drills in which players started more than three yards apart. And the parents are sitting up in the stands cheering?
When this kid is turning 15 or 16 years old, this kid is not going to know his name, he's not going to know how to get home from school. Yet in the South Carolina football hotbed of Rock Hill population: 69, , which has produced 11 NFL draft picks in the past 14 years, including Jadeveon Clowney, fans and families still line the football fields with lawn chairs, grills and coolers every August when the local YMCA youth teams hold Oklahoma Drill Night.
It has many variations, but at its base, two players line up against each other in a confined practice-field space. Teammates gather around to witness football's version of gladiator battle. When the whistle blows, the combatants collide. One emerges from the one-on-one clash a winner. Take a good look because this staple of American male-bonding and team-shaping is on its way out.
The NFL is asking its teams to get rid of it. All of it reflects the ongoing player-safety movement across all of football: The best way to stay healthy -- indeed, the best thing for the game -- is to hit less.
The second aspect of it was quickness and speed and reaction to movement. In the league that might as well have invented hard-nosed football, the Oklahoma drill sounded like it may be on its way out. It's just not something we cared to introduce. Is it educational? This is why, in , Pop Warner outlawed head-on tackling drills in which players started more than three yards apart.
And the parents are sitting up in the stands cheering? When this kid is turning 15 or 16 years old, this kid is not going to know his name, he's not going to know how to get home from school. Yet in the South Carolina football hotbed of Rock Hill population: 69, , which has produced 11 NFL draft picks in the past 14 years, including Jadeveon Clowney, fans and families still line the football fields with lawn chairs, grills and coolers every August when the local YMCA youth teams hold Oklahoma Drill Night.
The coaches, in fact, like to brag that the reason the fields are so lush is not from the rain but the tears and at least one tooth shed by players during the drill. On one oven-hot August night last year, longtime coach Perry Sutton gathers his players, most of them between 7 and 10, near a whitewashed goalpost for a pre-drill pep talk. Struggling to be heard above a chorus of cicadas and a circling ice cream truck, Sutton reviews the importance of safe tackling by reminding the Sylvia Circle Demons of a high school kid who broke his neck in a similar drill.
Although he doesn't mention him by name, it's likely Sutton is referring to Jaleel Gipson, a football player at Farmerville Louisiana High School who in broke a vertebra high in his neck during what coaches say was a routine rep in an Oklahoma-style drill. Gipson was declared brain-dead and died less than a week later after being taken off life support.
Bengals tackle Andrew Whitworth, a Louisiana native, paid for Gipson's funeral three months before being subjected to the same drill himself. As the long shadows crawl across the field in Rock Hill, though, the crowd grows as the Demons run through dozens of Oklahoma drills.
Some reps are little more than skinny kids in saggy football pants and bobblehead helmets harmlessly bouncing into each other.
But very often, the cheering crowd, the hyped-up coaches and the inescapable contact produce the thunderous helmet crunch that has come to symbolize the Oklahoma drill's new rite of passage -- into the debilitating dangers of football.
Or it will let you know football ain't for you. Stoops blows his whistle and, without raising his voice, says: "Oklahoma. Bell steps through the crowd and puts his right hand in the dirt.
When he looks up, crouched down across from him is linebacker Geneo Grissom, his good friend and a future third-round draft pick of the Patriots. Bell and Grissom exchange a knowing smile. There are no free passes, especially for former quarterbacks.
At the whistle, Grissom shoots out low and hard, the crown of his helmet hitting Bell in the throat. The collision, which sounds like a baseball bat hitting a windshield, rocks Bell a bit. Grissom's legs are locked, but Bell keeps churning his feet, grinding away the linebacker's leverage. He stands him up, turns him and drives Grissom over the dummies and several yards into a crowd of stunned teammates.
The running back dances through untouched. After one final, declarative shove, Bell is swarmed with congratulatory chest bumps, high-fives and head-butts. It was close to it. Bell would go on to play only 12 games at tight end, collecting 16 catches for yards and four TDs.
But after his eye-popping performance at the NFL combine, he was selected in the fourth round of the NFL draft by the 49ers. With less than a year of experience, Bell transformed himself into the sixth tight end selected.
Better still, this July, when he reported for his first day of training camp, his days in the gauntlet were behind him -- along with those sleepless nights.
A number of coaches were asked for comment on the drill, in light of the NFL banning it. His comments were particularly apt when you consider that football is considered a brotherhood, like family.
Again, particularly apt when you consider that all the time spent practicing is intended to make you better at the game. Practice makes permanent. Whilst acknowledging the need for safety in football, South Carolina Gamecocks head coach, Will Muschamp, believes the drill is still greatly relevant in the game.
Great pad level, great explosion. Teaches you to get off a block and make a tackle. It teaches a running back to finish a run, to run through contact. The basic fundamentals of what you would say happens on every single football play goes into that drill. It is very much a case of what you believe defines football as a sport. When I was a kid back then, that was the time we were in. It was all about how hard you could hit somebody.
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