What Is Heads Up Football?

Heads Up Football is the player-safety certification program developed by USA Football, the sport's national governing body. Launched in 2012 and now adopted by thousands of youth leagues nationwide, it teaches a fundamentally different tackling technique — one designed to remove the head from contact. The program is built around the recognition that most serious football injuries, including concussions and the degenerative brain disease CTE, are linked to repeated head impacts. If the head never leads the tackle, the risk drops dramatically.

Heads Up Football is not a single drill or technique in isolation. It's a comprehensive approach that includes certified coaching education, the 5-step tackling technique described below, full-contact practice limits, concussion recognition training, and proper equipment fitting. Leagues that adopt the full program see meaningful reductions in head-impact exposure.

The 5-Step Heads Up Tackling Technique

USA Football teaches tackling as a sequence of five linked positions. Each step builds on the last, and coaches should drill each in isolation before combining them at full speed. The entire progression emphasizes feet, hips, and shoulder contact — never the head.

The mantra coaches repeat at every level: "Head up. Feet moving. Shoulder leads. Wrap." When any of these fail — especially "head up" — the risk of injury skyrockets.

Why Heads-Up Matters: The CTE Connection

Repetitive head impacts — not just diagnosed concussions, but the thousands of sub-concussive hits a football player absorbs over a career — are the leading known cause of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive degenerative brain disease. CTE research from Boston University's CTE Center has found the disease in the brains of former football players at rates far exceeding the general population, including some who played only through high school or college.

The takeaway for parents: every hit that can be removed from practice, and every tackle that can be made without head contact, matters. Young brains are still developing, and the cumulative effect of head impacts across a youth career is the single greatest modifiable risk factor.

Dangerous Techniques to Avoid

Certain tackling techniques are explicitly banned by rule at every level and are the leading causes of catastrophic football injuries. Coaches must never teach them, players must never use them, and officials will penalize and eject for them:

• Spear tackling — leading with the crown (top) of the helmet. Causes cervical spine fractures and concussions. Banned since 1976 at the college and high school level. Penalty: targeting / personal foul, ejection in most rulebooks.
• Ducking the head — dropping the chin and head at contact. The head becomes the first point of contact, defeating the entire Heads Up technique. Coaches call this "biting the football."
• Leading with the crown — the head is down and the very top of the helmet strikes first. The combination of head-down + crown-leading is the highest-risk action in the sport.
• Horse-collar tackle — grabbing the back inside collar of the shoulder pads and pulling the runner down backward. Causes ankle and knee injuries. Banned at all levels.
• Launching — leaving the feet to make head-first contact. Penalty at all levels.
• Striking a defenseless player — hitting a player in the head or neck area, or a player who cannot protect themselves (a receiver in the act of catching, a QB in the throwing motion, a kicker). Ejection-worthy in most rulebooks.

Pop Warner Safety Reforms

Pop Warner — the largest youth football organization in the United States — implemented landmark safety reforms in 2012 in response to concussion and CTE research. These rules became a model for other organizations and fundamentally changed how youth football is practiced:

• Full-speed, head-on contact drills limited to 40 minutes per week (or 1/3 of total weekly practice time), whichever is less. Contact drills that are not full-speed or are not head-on are not counted toward this limit.
• No full-speed head-on blocking or tackling drills in which players line up more than 3 yards apart.
• No "bull in the ring" drills (a single player surrounded by others who take turns hitting them).
• Kickoffs and kick returns eliminated for the youngest divisions (Tiny-Mite, Mitey-Mite, and Junior Mitey-Mite, ages 5–10). These are the highest-impact-collision plays in football.
• Three-point stances eliminated for the youngest divisions, replaced with a two-point stance to reduce head-down contact at the snap.
• Strict concussion protocols — any player suspected of a concussion is removed immediately and cannot return without medical clearance.

Practice Contact Guidelines

The single most evidence-based safety reform in football is limiting full-contact practice. The vast majority of head impacts over a season occur in practice, not games — so practice is where the greatest reductions are possible. Many state high school athletic associations have adopted formal limits:

If your child's program is running full-contact practices daily, that's a red flag. Ask the coach about their contact policy and whether it conforms to your state association's rules.

Coaching Certification: USA Football Heads Up

Every youth football coach should hold a current USA Football Heads Up certification. The certification covers tackling technique, equipment fitting, concussion recognition, heat and hydration, sudden cardiac arrest, and proper practice planning. It must be renewed annually. Ask to see proof of certification before your child's first practice.

• Heads Up Football — the core tackling and contact-progression curriculum
• Concussion recognition training (CDC HEADS UP aligned) — coaches must know the signs and remove athletes immediately
• Equipment fitting — helmets and shoulder pads must be fitted by a certified fitter; an ill-fitting helmet offers little protection
• Heat & hydration — acclimatization protocols and WBGT-based activity modification
• Sudden cardiac arrest — recognition and emergency action plans

Parent Safety Checklist for a Football Program

Before enrolling your child in any youth football program, evaluate it against this checklist. A quality program will answer every item confidently:

• ☐ All coaches hold current USA Football Heads Up certification (ask to see it; it must be renewed annually)
• ☐ Full-contact practice limited to 40 min/week (Pop Warner standard) or your state high school association's limit
• ☐ Helmets are NOCSAE-certified and recently reconditioned (helmets should be reconditioned every 1–2 years; ask when they were last inspected)
• ☐ An athletic trainer is present at games and ideally at full-contact practices (this is the gold standard; many youth leagues cannot afford one, but you should ask)
• ☐ A written emergency action plan (EAP) is posted and rehearsed, including the location of the nearest AED
• ☐ An AED is on-site or within a 3-minute retrieval for sudden cardiac arrest
• ☐ Concussion protocols follow CDC HEADS UP and your state's youth sports concussion law (all 50 states have one)
• ☐ Players are grouped by age, weight, and developmental level — not just age. Severe size mismatches increase injury risk.
• ☐ Heat acclimatization is followed for the first 14 days of pre-season (see our heat illness guide)
• ☐ The program welcomes parent questions about safety and has a clear communication channel for injury reporting

Based on USA Football Heads Up Football curriculum, Pop Warner Little Scholars rule changes (2012), CDC HEADS UP guidelines, NFHS football rules, and Boston University CTE Center research (Mez et al., JAMA 2017).