Safety in football has taken on unprecedented levels of scrutiny in recent times, and for good reason. Impacts of repeated blows to the head have proven to be extremely detrimental to a player’s long-term health and it has caused the NFL to re-evaluate its rules and many companies to try and develop more advanced football helmets.
The Florida Gators football program has been on the forefront of program development and once again this week took the next step of having Riddell representatives on their campus to develop helmets that can protect their players as much as possible in the violent sport of football.
The Florida players were modeled for custom-fit helmets as the Riddell staff performed 3D head scans to provide a custom-fit design for the helmet in an effort to optimize the players safety with in-game head-to-head impacts.
The process below was documented by the Florida Athletics staff as they showed center Cameron Dillard, running back Mark Herndon and safety Chauncey Gardner all getting fitted with their new Riddell helmets after the data from the 3D scan was collected.
.@RiddellSports here @GatorsFB doing 3D modeling of our guys heads to build custom fit helmets #NextLevelGators pic.twitter.com/2e9IIW35OB
— Gator Recruiting (@_Gators_) May 11, 2016
Additionally, a video on the process in action is below:
.@riddellsports in the equip room doing 3D scans of our guys to build custom fit helmets. #SafetyFirst #GoG… https://t.co/TYo31lDzQu
— Gator Recruiting (@_Gators_) May 11, 2016
With the increased focus on concussions in football at all levels, it has caused all parties to look deeper at how the football helmet is constructed and what materials optimally go into it. As schools like Florida look to provide their players with the safest helmets available on the market, it can hopefully lead to a decline in concussions sustained by their players and make the game safer overall for the student-athletes that play it.