You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
Leaders in Divisions II and III of the National Collegiate Athletic Association have acted in recent days to prohibit football teams from practicing twice in a day, as is commonly done before the season starts. And officials in Division I -- the association's top competitive level, which contains the programs that get most of the national attention -- are debating whether to do the same this week.
The decisions flow from a set of recommendations released in January about physical contact in year-round football practices, emerging from studies by a consortium -- involving the NCAA and the Department of Defense -- studying head injuries. This week the management council of Division III voted to bar two practices involving contact on the same day, though the change allows teams to have a "walk through" after a three-hour recovery window. On Tuesday the Division II Management Council passed its own emergency legislation doing the same thing -- a provision that the division's Presidents Council is expected to consider within two weeks.
The Division I Council is considering a similar plan during its meeting this week, an NCAA spokeswoman said.
