Player safety in football has never been more important, or emphasized. Changes to the rules may help reduce harm to players but every manufacturer of football equipment is working to make sure players wearing their gear are protected as best as possible as well.
Jim Wegener, of Montana, hopes his modification to the football helmet will catch on. Wegener created a special safety latch that prevents a player’s helmet from popping off unless properly unlocked. The idea here being that a helmet will remain on a player at all times when a hard enough collision would normally knock the helmet loose, leaving the player’s head exposed. Wegener watched his modified helmet on TV last week and was pleased with the initial results.
“Cody Green, the quarterback for Tulsa, was wearing one of my inventions and not once did his helmet come off,” Wegener told the Los Angeles Times. “The first time he tried to pull it off, he couldn’t. He had to do it the right way. We hope this thing is going to prevent a lot of injuries out there.”
Tulsa is just one of many college football programs using the safety latch. Colorado State, Kansas State, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Penn State, Ole Miss and Baylor are just a handful of schools using the helmet safety latch, according to Wegener’s website, HelmetSafetyLatch.com.
Is the latch a cure-all for avoiding injuries to the head? Of course not, but it is certainly a start.