The Florida High School Athletic Association has a new policy: less is more when it comes to live hitting in practice on the football field.

We spoke with several local coaches to get their reaction to the new rules that will go into effect this upcoming season.

Many of them were in favor of the plan, which limits live contact to 30 minutes a day during practice in the regular season and 80 hours per week.

"Anytime when you can put in some rules in place that can give you an opportunity to make it a little bit safer for the kids- it’s always good for the game," Bishop Moore head coach Matt Hedrick said.

Teams will only be allowed to participate in full contact drills three days per week during the regular season and will be limited to 40 minutes of live contact during the preseason.

Live contact drills are defined as anything that involves one player tackling another to the ground.

Some coaches will make major changes in their practice schedules, but many won’t.

St. Pete High’s Joe Fabrizio is one of the coaches who's ahead of the game.

About four years ago, Fabrizio and his staff transitioned to only about 15 minutes per day of live hitting after several of his players were getting injured.

Further research cemented his decision.

“Finally, we just sort of sat down and said, are we really doing what we needed to do to get the kids ready?" Fabrizio asked at the time.  "Or are we just beating them up Monday through Thursday?

"And that was really the changing point- in terms of how hard our kids were going in practice and causing some injuries to ourselves.”

Braden River head coach Curt Bradley, who played collegiately at the University of Northern Iowa, says his team won't have any live contact at all until their first game of the season.

Jones High School head coach Elijah Williams is used to holding off on most of the heavy hitting until game day, too.

That's how Williams was trained in college with the Florida Gators and in the NFL with the Atlanta Falcons.

“When I played in high school, I hit twice as much in high school as I did in the pros," Williams said.  "Which shows you that there’s a big disconnect in the teaching philosophy of football.”

Lakewood head coach Cory Moore, who also played professionally, wonders if less contact in practice will catch up to his team on gameday.

"If you have not worked your body to the point where they can take that beating now when they're in that situation, how will they react physically- or mentally- when they encounter that shock of contact during games," Moore asked.

But as a parent, Moore is very favorable of the rule changes.

“I feel a lot better now because there are more efforts taking forward for kids that they make have a better quality and quantity of life,” Moore said.

 Ironically, the group most opposed to the FHSAA's new guidelines may be the group those rules were designed to protect: the players.

Moore's son, Kyandre, fits into that category.

“I feel like contact helps a team and makes a team tougher," Kyandre Moore said.  "So I like the contact.  I mean, I don’t like the rule.”

Like it or not, there will be less hitting- and hopefully fewer injuries- in practice starting this fall.

Several of the coaches agreed that focusing more on the fundamentals of proper tackling is more important than restricting the number of hours.

But they also feel that the new restrictions will only benefit the health of the players.

Fabrizio's only worry about the limited live contact restrictions will be in the preseason when St. Pete would normally have Saturday scrimmages.

Those scrimmages will now need to be shorter, eliminated, or transformed into less of a full scrimmage situation.

Moore says it's a coach's job to evolve with the game, and he's much more concerned with the bright future of his players than potentially sacrificing their health just to win.

Fabrizio has purchased modern equipment and went with more "thud" drills to make up for the lack of live contact.

Everyone we spoke with agreed that you can never eliminate risk of injury in football, but they hope that rules like these new ones will limit the chances of players getting hurt.