what are your thoughts: As a coach, one of the ways to create a safer environment is to provide proper instruction and avoid mismatch scenarios in practice. In high school football, it is not uncommon to have a sophomore and a senior have 40-60 pound weight differences. Naturally, this presents some potential dangers. To protect our athletes from harm (and coaches from liability), we typically insist on having players of the same class and ability level compete against one another in live one-on-one scenarios. Of course, there are scenarios in which a sophomore can compete against a senior, but those decisions must be made carefully and with each athlete's individual development in mind. If we were to pair up a 140-pound sophomore vs. a 210-pound all-conference linebacker, there would certainly be a disadvantage, and the younger player could be put in a dangerous situation. This could potentially make the staff liable for allowing this mismatch. Another way that we have aimed to create a safe environment is to stay up-to-date on the best techniques and practices. We have implemented the "hawk tackle," which focuses on taking the head out of the tackle. In our program, we have taught this tackle