In this fifth installment in our eight-part series, I predict the future of not only Mountaineer athletics but the future of all college athletics.
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We devote much of our space in the Blue & Gold News to looking back, but this seems like a perfect time to look forward … not to next year but to the next decade.
If you listen to oldies radio, you may be familiar with the Zager and Evans song from the late ‘60s titled, “In the year 2525.”
Its lyrics include, “In the year 2525, if man is still alive; If woman can survive, they may find …”
I’m not about to try to predict the year 2525 for athletics or anything else. But I do think a look to the year 2035 is appropriate. It may seem like an eternity away, but we’re now closer to 2035 than we are away from WVU’s basketball run to the Final Four in 2010 and pretty close to equal distance from the Mountaineers’ 2012 Orange Bowl slaughter of Clemson.
For many of us, those iconic West Virginia athletic moments feel like they happened two months ago, but time flies, and so we will soon be well into the ‘30s … if we all survive.
I’m not Nostradamus, so I certainly won’t guarantee any of my predictions for the future are 100% accurate, but here are my thoughts on what college and WVU athletics will look like in 2035.
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Football safety – The game of football is a contact sport, so it’s impossible to eliminate all risk, though reducing it has been a major goal at all levels of football, especially in the past 20 years. The next decade will see further rules and equipment changes with an eye to further curtailing injuries, especially head injuries.
Improved helmet design, which is ongoing, is a big need to soften the concussive hits. There are already helmets that measure the force of a blow, and those will become widespread – at least at the pro and college level. A hit that reads over a specific level on those meters will then likely oblige the player to undergo a medical evaluation or potentially even require him to sit out the rest of the game.
Other rule changes with the hope of better player safety will be:
• Eliminating kickoffs entirely, thus negating the high-speed collisions that go with that play phase. Instead all post-score possessions would start at the 25. There will be a different method put in place for those wanting to retain possession, as they now can through an on-side kick.
• Banning all three- and four-point stances. Linemen and everyone else will not be able to start a play with their hand on the ground, thus reducing the head-to-head charge that is so prominent now by those in the trenches.
• Targeting, a call that is already contentious, is not going away. Indeed it likely expands in the future in order to further protect players.
Many football fans may not like all the safety measures that have already been imposed and those that are to come, but if the sport of football hopes to survive in an era where participation numbers are dwindling because of injury concerns, everything possible must be done to minimize potential harm.
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