NCAA changes spearing rule to make the game safer

"The way we practice, we're taught to keep our head up anyway, so it's not a big change," he said. "But we're aware of the new rules. We just don't know how it's going play out in games. Hopefully, it doesn't change much."

Spearing generally brings to mind a tackler lowering his head and planting his helmet into another player's body.

While it may seem that the player on the receiving end of such hits is most vulnerable, the player delivering the blow is in far greater danger, Courson said.

"Our team doctors came and talked to our team about spearing and said how the intent of the rule is really to protect the guy who is spearing," Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis said.

The difference between a safe hit and a potentially fatal one is mere inches.

"When you bend that head forward your spine becomes perfectly straight and it can't absorb shock," Courson said. "My head stops and my body is still going. It's called axial loading."

Two of the most tragic and well-known examples of what can happen when a tackler drops his head are the cases of Chucky Mullins and Curtis Williams. Mullins was a defensive back for Mississippi who was left paralyzed after a hit he delivered in a game against Vanderbilt in 1989. He died 18 months later.

Williams was playing defensive back for Washington when he was paralyzed trying to make a tackle against Stanford in 2000. Like Mullins, Williams died 18 months later.

"Unless you've been around somebody that's had one of those serious neck injuries, you just don't know how devastating it can be," Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer said.

Last season, a helmet-to-helmet hit left Tennessee Tech receiver Drew Hixon with a serious head injury. Hixon is returning to school, but not the football team, this fall.

"This isn't an epidemic, but we do see a couple a year where you say, 'That was a dangerous hit,"' NCAA associated director Ty Halpin said.

Courson hopes the media will be more discerning about what hits they glorify on television. Rosegreen's hit on Brown was all over the highlight shows.

"If the media doesn't realize what's an illegal hit, kids are going to see it and say 'I want to be on the highlights,' and the media is teaching bad habits," he said.