Sherrill: 7-on-7 drills changed college football

Jackie Sherrill believes the most popular summer activity for high school and college football players has changed the sport -- 7-on-7.

In his appearance at the Montgomery Country Club, Sherrill said Tuesday night the biggest change in college football since he last coached in 2003 is the athletic ability of the players. He believes that stems from the emergence of 7-on-7 drills and credits former Vanderbilt quarterback Kurt Page for starting those when coaching high school football in the state Tennessee in the 1980s.

"He started 7-on-7 there," said Sherrill, who had Page work for him as a graduate assistant at A&M. "That was years ago. Fast forward, now kids spend all summer playing 7-on-7. You're taking the basketball players out of basketball and putting them on the football field."

Page was an assistant at West Alabama (1988-89) before becoming a head high school coach at Battle Ground Academy in Franklin, Tenn., and his alma mater, Father Ryan in Nashville. Page was also a head coach at athletic director at Randolph in Huntsville from 2002 to 2006.

To Sherrill, Page started something that has been the biggest change in college football in the last 10 years.

"You look at the receivers and you look at the defensive backs, a lot of those kids wouldn't come out for football," Sherrill said. "They've come out now because we're throwing the ball all over park. You're getting a lot more athletic kids."

However, Sherrill said teams still have to be able to run the football and stop the run to win in college football, but admits he couldn't coach today as he did years ago.

"No longer can you have 300-pound plus defensive linemen because they can't play 80 snaps," Sherrill said. "They can't play the 90 snaps. So you put more emphasis on guys that are 6-4, 280, 285 who can run, but also have enough explosion to stop the run."

Sherrill did note that the need for bigger defensive lineman may change if teams return to placing a greater emphasis on the running game. He pointed out how Arkansas ran the ball 68 times for 438 yards in last week's win against Texas Tech.

"They only threw for 61 yards," said a smiling Sherrill.