Few things herald Thanksgiving as loudly as turkeys, flight delays, and long hours in front of the TV watching football.
Few things herald Thanksgiving as loudly as turkeys, flight delays, and long hours in front of the TV watching football. It's an important time in the football calendar, with the playoffs beginning to shape up for both college football and the NFL.
But what about those impacts? I don't mind watching football, but there's no way I'm going to take one of those hits. When I see some of these epic tackles, I can't help but think about physics.
There are some great tools available so that we can analyze the physics of a football hit. Really, we have everything. the masses of individual players? Yup—just search the roster and you can look these things up. Video analysis tools? Again, yes. Personally, I really like Tracker Video Analysis. There's just two more things we need for a full analysis. I need the video frame rate, but this is trivial. Although some impacts are replayed in slow motion, they are also shown in real time. What about a distance scale? Oh wait! It's right there on the field with the yard lines. We are all set.
Let's start with a collision. I just did a search for "biggest football hits" and quickly found one that would work. In this case, I am going to look at the Clemson vs. Syracuse game from 2017. The play has Clemson wide receiver Trevion Thompson (205 lbs) tackled by Parris Bennett (216 lbs) from Syracuse.
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Photo credit: KeithJJ via Pixabay
