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Texas Tech football gets tips on tackling from across the pond
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- Texas Tech football gets tips on tackling from across the pond
On a listing of the Texas Tech football staff that includes more than 50 names, Richie Gray 's is nowhere to be found.
If the Red Raiders are more effective tacklers this season, though, Gray's influence might have something to do with it. The former Scottish rugby player, coach and equipment innovator has been consulting with Tech defensive staff members and players since the spring of 2023, over the phone, by way of Zoom video conferencing and a couple of times when he's actually come to Lubbock.
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"Anytime he's here in person," Tech inside linebackers coach Josh Bookbinder said Wednesday, "I want him talking to our guys (players), because if you listen to the guy talk, there's not many times in life where you can hear an expert, right? This guy's an expert.
"A, he's an expert. B, those guys walk out of the room wanting to absolutely go take it to somebody.
"In the offseason, we have some (video) cutups that we wanted him to look at and kind of give us his opinion on how we're tackling and stuff. So anytime I've had him on campus or a couple of times on Zoom with the guys, it's an opportunity to learn."
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Texas Tech football taps into Scotland rugby's Richie Gray to perfect tackling
Tech coaches have taken a hard look at how they go about tackling for more than a year. Tech coach Joey McGuire told the Avalanche-Journal after spring football he wanted the Red Raiders to be better tacklers than they were last season.
"We changed our whole tackling circuit," McGuire said, "because we were not terrible, but we weren't great at tackling in space."
Rugby-style tackling techniques have been incorporated for several years into American football, partly to lessen concussions. The Miami Dolphins enlisted Gray to begin consulting with their team in 2016. More recently, he's been credited as the brains behind the "Tush Push," the rugby-style scrum the Philadelphia Eagles have used to power up an old-fashioned quarterback sneak.
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His input into the Red Raiders, though, has focused on tackling.
"I think just seeing a new perspective," linebacker John Curry said, "because our whole entire lives, we've been taught how to tackle in the football style. But with his teachings on how to tackle in rugby, it's just brought us a new perspective on how to do things differently."
Gray's biography on the GSi Performance website describes him as "an Elite Performance Skills/Contact Coach who has quite simply changed the way coaches coach, and players train and prepare for the area of contact and collision globally."
Bookbinder said he met Gray through a mutual friend at the American Football Coaches Association annual convention in January 2023. The help flows both ways. While Gray offers his advice and insights to the Red Raiders, Tech uses some of the GSi Performance equipment he designed in practice and gives feedback.
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"He's an innovator. He's an inventor," Bookbinder said. "He's invented all sorts of equipment for rugby teams to use. Now he's invented some tackling equipment for football. So the tackling drills still, I would say, are in the same general universe, but he's kind of helped us add some detail to it.
"The real benefit, I think, is in the offseason. The equipment can be used by our guys in the offseason, and there's a whole program they've been through the past two offseasons to kind of keep them battle ready."
Texas Tech linebackers coach Josh Bookbinder attends football practice, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024, at the Sports Performance Center.
Texas Tech football tries year-round tackling work without the physical toll
Bookbinder said his inside linebackers have been the chief practitioners of Gray's techniques, and Tech defensive backs incorporated them more this summer.
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In an age in which game-like, to-the-ground tackling has largely been scaled back in practice to reduce injuries and keep players fresher, the Red Raiders say they're finding a medium. Linebacker Jacob Rodriguez said they now work on tackling throughout the year.
"Obviously, it's a little bit different of a contact, because we have pads on and a lot of different stuff from rugby," Rodriguez said last week. "But tackling year-round is something that can continue to improve instead of taking four months off or five months off. That's hard to do. If you only did tackling in spring ball and then during the season, you're missing out on a lot of time to keep your fundamentals and everything like that."
Rodriguez said the Red Raiders are working on tackling technique without beating up on each other.
"It's not too much contact," he said. "It's just on a tackle bag and you can do it without pads on. It's very low impact. But it still gets your feet in the right position, your body in the right position. You're always staying loaded, your head up, all that type of stuff."
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This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Scottish tackling/collision coach Richie Gray aids Texas Tech football
