Look up the statistics on that type of injury happening during a football practice that is "non-contact" and get back to me.
The crux of my argument is the fact that no matter how the injury happens (be it due to a lineman falling on an RB the wrong way or a simple cut) the majority of these injuries happen during FULL SPEED FULL CONTACT practices. Nothing more nothing less.
The above post by SteveGarvey is the most lucid illustration of the idea in action (his first sentence anyways)
Here are some
statistics in a decent (not great) piece.
- 70-84% of ACL injuries occur from a non-contact mechanism.
- Although most ACL injuries are non-contact, the most common mechanism among HS football players is player-to-player contact. Not sure if this also holds true in college.
- College FB players have a 16% chance of tearing an ACL in their 4 years on campus.
- Artificial surface may increase ACL risk by as much as 88% (even the new stuff)
- Among NFL players, kickers suffer ACL injuries at the highest rate
I could be wrong, but I didn't think that Iowa did much tackling in practice. Can anyone out there with personal experience attest to that?
You could debate the amount of tackling that should be performed in a practice. I don't think any reasonable person would suggest that players never move at full-speed during practice.
As to your point about the frequency of Iowa ACL injuries, maybe you are mixing-and-matching your memories of RBs lost to ACLs with RBs lost to all other causes.
There was that one really bad year with ACLs (2004, right?). Perhaps there was a systematic problem that year. But apparently they fixed it, because since then who has gone down with an ACL injury in practice? Or any injury? See the following from
this post and its thorough research:
- Jeff Brinson got hurt in '08 and '09 (in practice, I believe). I don't think it was an ACL injury. He later tore his ACL after he transferred away from Iowa. I think it is a good bet that he was injury-prone, whether at Iowa or not.
- Jewel Hampton got hurt in '09 (ACL). That was in practice (edit: as per Easton, this was a non-contact injury in a players only practice). He later tore another ACL in a game.
- Adam Robinson got a concussion in '10 during a game.
- Coker broke his collar-bone in camp in '10.
- Mikail McCall broke his leg in a game.
So in the last 7 years, 1 RB that was going to see the field, Hampton, suffered a non-contact ACL tear in practice (Canzieri may make 2). One other, Coker, broke a collar bone in practice. That does not seem like an exorbitant injury rate to me.