By Adam Studzinski

BLOOMINGTON – The Illinois High School Association is considering limiting the amount of full contact practice time allowed during football season.

The group’s Board of Directors discussed the rules on Tuesday. Assistant Executive Director Kurt Gibson said if the rules pass, beginning week one of the season, teams would only be able to have three days of full contact practices in a week.

“That total contact time can’t exceed 90 minutes,” said Gibson. “Recommendation two is on any day during the season when a school would have two practices during a day only one can involve full contact.”

Gibson said the rules continue the discussion on player safety.

“When you think about concussions and you think about football, the current research does talk about this idea, if you will, that if you can reduce the amount of exposures players have to, you know, head-to-head contact the greater the chance that they won’t sustain a concussion,” he said.

Gibson added most, if not all, coaches have heard about these possible new rules.

“Coaches understand the importance of player safety,” said Gibson. “While they realize this is going to maybe force them in some capacity to change the way they structure practice they realize this is important and necessary.”

The board will vote on the new rules in June.

Adam Studzinski can be reached at [email protected].