Related links
Q&A with NCAA competitive-safeguards committee chair 

Timeline: Three decades of change

More research: NCAA-related concussion studies and articles

The NCAA has been at the forefront of implementing rules to help protect players from concussions and further discussions will take place starting this weekend.

Here is an update on the NCAA’s management of this complex issue:

• Over the past five years, the NCAA Football Rules Committee has made changes to help protect players against concussions. These changes include bans on all helmet-first tackles, hits against defenseless players and blows to the head.
• The NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports is meeting December 13-15 and will discuss the topic. Discussion will include the most recent developments in brain injury and concussion research.
• Since 1976 the NCAA has prohibited using the head as a weapon in football and other contact sports. For the past 15 years, the NCAA has provided institutions with specific recommendations regarding concussion management in its Sports Medicine Handbook.

Protecting the players

Starting with the 2005-06 season, rules were strengthened to ban all helmet-first tackles. For the 2007-08 season, the NCAA placed a greater emphasis on eliminating hits on defenseless players and blows to the head.

The Football Rules Committee has distributed several video examples to officials, coaches and conference administrators to educate and clarify what types of plays should result in penalty and ejection. 

Upcoming discussions

The NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports, which will meet in Indianapolis on December 13-15, is made up of collegiate medical personnel, athletics administrators, and student-athlete representatives.

The 20-member committee can make recommendations on medically related rules and issues.  The committee also is responsible for the guidelines in the Sports Medicine Handbook.

Concussion guidelines

The NCAA Sports Medicine Handbook instructs member institutions on how to recognize the signs and symptoms of concussions and how to manage treatment and prevention of head injuries.  The handbook provides specific “return-to-play” guidelines regarding concussions. 

The NCAA concussion guidelines read, in part: “It is essential that no athlete be allowed to return to participation when any symptoms, including mild headache, persist. It has also been recommended that for any injury that involves significant symptoms, long duration of symptoms or difficulties with memory function, not be allowed to return to play during the same day of competition.  It has been further demonstrated that retrograde amnesia, post-traumatic amnesia, and the duration of confusion and mental status changes longer than five minutes may be more sensitive indicators of injury severity. Once an athlete is completely asymptomatic, the return-to-play progression should occur in a stepwise fashion with gradual increments in physical exertion and risk of contact.”   

Making changes

The NCAA is a membership-run association. All rules must be approved by committees composed of personnel from member institutions and conferences (and, in some cases, other members with special expertise). Committees, such as the competitive-safeguards panel, can recommend rule changes to the appropriate committees for consideration.