The Oklahoma drill is an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

practice Practice or practise may refer to: Education and learning * Practice (learning method), a method of learning by repetition * Phantom practice, phenomenon in which a person's abilities continue to improve, even without practicing * Practice-based ...

technique used to test players in confined full contact situations. The technique was developed by

Oklahoma Sooners The Oklahoma Sooners are the sport, athletic teams that represent the University of Oklahoma, located in Norman, Oklahoma, Norman. The 19 men's and women's varsity teams are called the "Sooners", a reference to a nickname given to the early part ...

coach

Bud Wilkinson Charles Burnham "Bud" Wilkinson (April 23, 1916 – February 9, 1994) was an American football player, coach, broadcaster, and politician. He served as the head football coach at the University of Oklahoma from 1947 to 1963, compiling a record of ...

Description

The drill has several variations. The most common involves two players lined up three yards opposite one another. A corridor is set up typically using three blocking bags on each side of the players lined up top to bottom to create a wall, and the walls are spaced about one yard apart. This creates an area of about three feet by nine feet. The two players, at the sound of the whistle, then run at one another and the drill is over when one of the players is on the ground, or if a ball carrier is involved when he is tackled, or if the ball carrier runs out of bounds. If a player is able to drive the other player out of the corridor, that also ends the drill. In a variation, the ball carrier must keep running until they score a touchdown.

Prevalence

Many

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and

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offerin ...

teams use the Oklahoma drill as a way to kick off the first day of full contact practice. While often criticized as excessive, some argue that it can be a critical tool used by coaches to evaluate players that might have looked good in non-contact drills, but have yet to face full contact. Other times the drill is used simply to get players in the proper mind-set for full contact practices, especially in high school and college, where many times players have gone up to eight months doing only non-contact drills. The Oklahoma drill, along with other full-contact drills, was officially banned from NFL team practices in May 2019 following years of declining use and increasing concerns for player safety. Veterans and high-profile NFL players rarely participate in pit drills owing to the higher risk of injury. Prior to the ban many team owners and coaches already refused to permit the drill. Notable exceptions had included the Chargers, and the Bengals who used the drill as a kind of celebration of the first day of full-contact practices. On October 7, 2015, Dan Campbell reportedly used the Oklahoma drill to begin his first practice as interim head coach of the

Miami Dolphins The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member team of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The team p ...

. On July 29, 2018, the

Detroit Lions The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit. The Lions compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) North Division. The team play their home games at For ...

used a reportedly safer variant of the Oklahoma drill during practice under first year head coach

Matt Patricia Matthew Edward Patricia (born September 13, 1974) is an American football coach who is the senior football advisor and offensive line coach for the New England Patriots of the National Football League (NFL). He has served 15 non-consecutive sea ...

References

American football terminology Oklahoma Sooners football {{Americanfootball-stub