Let’s talk tackling and wrasslin brother

Cribby

All-American
Premium
Joined
Jan 30, 2012
Messages
40,017
I was listening to a Manny Diaz interview where he said it’s hard to practice tackling because of possible injuries and depth at rb. Which made me think of an old wrasslin reference that kinda connects with tackling. Growing up I was a big wrestling fan, I was a smart mark before that was a term.

I listen to a lot of podcast’s by former wrestlers that talk about their days on the road. they always mention that taking a bump isn’t natural to your body , kinda like tackling They also say the less bumps you take the worse your body reacts when do take them. Your body eventually gets used to the contact with the mat , the more reps the better your can handle it , It’s like your body gets callused / hardened by the constant bumping and the reps become second nature with how you fall.


Which brings me back to tackling . Tackling is like anything else , you need reps. Just like a jump shot or taking swings in the batting cage. Using a tire , a sled or thud isn’t tackling another man. Injuries are part of the game but you have to take that chance with something as big as tackling. It’s the most important part of the game. I mean it’s called “tackle “ football.

Back when I started playing ball I was very tentative and intimidated by tackling and tackling drills. But one thing our coaches did was have multiple tackling days , different drills that challenged you from different angles and different positions to help with reaction. I ended up one of our better tacklers and tbh we were a really good tackling team. Thats a far lower level but I know for a fact it’s necessary, practice makes perfect.

I also believe like taking a bump tackling and being tackled trains both parties on how to handle the contact and how to go to the ground. I don’t recall one injury in our tackling drills in the three years I played. I’m not saying you should have physical war daily but the results match what I’ve always heard about our practices , they lack physicality versus other programs.

The proof is in the pudding , Miami is the worst tackling team in the country. We have a minimum of 20 every game and 30 last game. If that doesn’t tell Manny about his practice habits nothing will.

This is why I’m so pro Mario and Alonzo. Smart people that are competitive , believe in physicality , toughness and knows what Miami is supposed to look like.
 
Last edited:
Advertisement
How we tackle:

200.gif



How we should tackle:

Dolph Ziggler Reaction GIF by WWE
 
Advertisement
contact has been limited in practices over the years across all levels (most recently found an NFL article saying the same), but we don't have the guys who have good habits to be able to do so. we need to go back day 1 in terms of tackling. can't rely on thud practices and expect them to do their job on Saturdays. we don't have a good tackling team by nature
 
This is what makes me so angry about Manny. Forget the game day ineptitude, forget the fact that we don't teach contain whatsoever, forget that we are completely undisciplined and make penalties at the worst possible times, forget that we have the worst defensive scheme possibly ever...... We are a D1 football program and we cannot make simple wrap up tackles. Not just a couple missed tackles per game, that stuff you can live with, but 30 MISSED TACKLES IN ONE GAME. That to me is a fireable offense in and of itself. I've played on teams where I don't think there were 50 missed tackles in a season and we have that through 2-3 games. Absolutely incomprehensible.
 
Church Pray GIF


The Oklahoma drill made people change sports. It was the highlight of practice for the dogs. And the softees would hide in the back of the line. So Sunday thru Friday all we're really doing is playing touch. Same applies with blocking. A blocking sled or dummy doesn't fight or move towards the ball. So we resort to holding in games. Mandy never played so he doesn't understand any of this.
 
Last edited:
Advertisement
contact has been limited in practices over the years across all levels (most recently found an NFL article saying the same), but we don't have the guys who have good habits to be able to do so. we need to go back day 1 in terms of tackling. can't rely on thud practices and expect them to do their job on Saturdays. we don't have a good tackling team by nature
I have friends who’s had kids play big boy ball and they tackle. Theres not as much tackling as the old days but it still happens .
Also if they have a bad game they increase contact. Btw if you really want safety teaching how to tackle without using your head is another area drills would help. I mean it would‘ve helped Amari a lot.

As I said you cant learn to tackle a man by tackling a tire , dummy or sled. We need more live reps. Or this will continue.
 
Advertisement
I was around some old school guys in my years at ETSU (Carl Torbush and Randy Sanders) and they made sure to tackle as much as the NCAA would allow. We lost a few players as a result. It did lead to more injuries… but they took a jump start program to the FCS playoff semi’s in year 3 and we sure as **** didn’t miss tackles and we played with UT for 2.5 quarters.

I was also around Drinkwitz a lot in his year at App State and he had the same mentality. One of the smartest guys I’ve been around.
 
I was listening to a Manny Diaz interview where he said it’s hard to practice tackling because of possible injuries and depth at rb. Which made me think of an old wrasslin reference that kinda connects with tackling. Growing up I was a big wrestling fan, I was a smart mark before that was a term.

I listen to a lot of podcast’s by former wrestlers that talk about their days on the road. they always mention that taking a bump isn’t natural to your body , kinda like tackling They also say the less bumps you take the worse your body reacts when do take them. Your body eventually gets used to the contact with the mat , the more reps the better your can handle it , It’s like your body gets callused / hardened by the constant bumping and the reps become second nature with how you fall.


Which brings me back to tackling . Tackling is like anything else , you need reps. Just like a jump shot or taking swings in the batting cage. Using a tire , a sled or thud isn’t tackling another man. Injuries are part of the game but you have to take that chance with something as big as tackling. It’s the most important part of the game.

Back when I started playing ball I was very tentative and intimidated by tackling and tackling drills. But one thing our coaches did was have multiple tackling days , different drills that challenged you from different angles and different positions to help with reaction. I ended up one of our better tacklers and tbh we were a really good tackling team. Thats a far lower level but I know for a fact it’s necessary, practice makes perfect.

I also believe like taking a bump tacking and being tackled trains both parties on how to handle the contact and how to go to the ground. I don’t recall one injury in our tackling drills , in the three years I played. I’m not saying you should have physical war daily but the results match what I’ve always heard about our practices , they lack physicality versus other programs.

The proof is in the pudding , Miami is the worst tackling team in the country. We have a minimum of 20 every game and 30 last game. If that doesn’t tell Manny about his practice habits nothing will.

This is why I’m so pro Mario and Alonzo. Smart people that are competitive , believe in physicality , toughness and knows what Miami is supposed to look like.
I was just talking to someone on Twitter about this last week. Lack of tackling each other in practice leads to a whole list of issues.

Like you said tackling sleds, pads and tires are different and nothing like like live tackling. The only thing they help with is technique and even then it’s real minimal.

We complain our guys don’t break tackles. That is a product of not being tackled. We see guys slowing up on a kickoff when they think a guy is going to be tackled, another product of not tackling in practice because your too used to the play being blown dead and the ball carrier not breaking the tackle.

They can miss me with the whole injury BS. If you don’t tackle you’re body is t used to it. You become stiff when trying to tackle because your body tensed up and next thing you know you get hurt. Same goes for ball carriers, if they’re not getting cracked then they don’t know how to absorb the hit and reduce the risk for injury.

I played safety at EKU and coach DB’s in HS. I had a heated discussion with the head when I started two years ago. We weren’t tackling very much during camp because he was worried about guys getting hurt. We played a fall scrimmage and we missed over 20 tackles and had 2 guys go down with shoulder injuries while trying to make a tackle. When all the coaches were reviewing the film the head coach was saying how we needed to focus on technique and work more with the tackling dummies. I took three weeks to convince him to let the kids start tackling each other more. After that our ball carriers were break more tackles and we were tackling much better.

There isn’t anything you can do in practice to replicate live tackling. They’re are risk involved but this is football. Tackling is the most important part of the game. If you do it really well then you’re going to have a good D.
 
And that explains why those guys bounce right off our tacklers. I don't understand how our Defensive Coordinator, who happens to also be the Head Coach at the University of Miami and was such a huge fan back in the day, don't realize this obvious issue(s). How he can possibly think this is okay is mind-blowing. No wonder he doesn't want former players around. He knows they'd have something to say about the "practices" and "coaching". Absolute disgrace.
 
Advertisement
Do you know how demoralizing it is going into a game knowing that your head coach has under prepared the team…. And has trash schemes?

I only hope that TVD or Garcia show some real promise going into next year…, everything else is a waste of a year
 
Advertisement
Back
Top