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ATHENS, Ga. — Kirby Smart made it sound dire. On paper, Smart coaches the most talented college football team in America. But as he has surveyed his roster this month — deep down the roster — it’s confirmed a fear: Fewer people are playing football, and that is affecting the quality of the game.

“I feel like we have less depth than we’ve ever had, and that’s kind of a common theme talking to other coaches,” Smart said. “I call it the deterioration of football.”

A Georgia high school coach echoed the feeling.

“There is definitely a decline in the number of kids that are playing the game,” said Adam Carter, the coach at Lowndes High in Valdosta. “I think there are multiple reasons. Football is hard work, it is over the summer and the number of parents in this generation who will not let their kids play at an early age. This means they only play baseball, basketball, soccer, etc., and never make it to a football field once they get older.”

So are they right? Even as football never has been more popular to watch and has never made more money, are fewer people playing? And is this a giant warning sign for the future of the game?

The data tells a complex story (and several other high school coaches contacted say they have record numbers of players).

“We’re encouraged by the numbers that are out there and the numbers of people that are playing,” said Steve Hatchell, the head of the National Football Foundation.

Kirby Smart is entering his ninth season as Georgia’s coach. (Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)

Whatever the case, stewards of the game acknowledge the concerns and say they will continue to make moves to make the game safer.

“There’s just a general awareness that we needed to make player behavior changes for the good of the athletes and to keep the game viable,” said Steve Shaw, the NCAA’s coordinator of officials and head of the football rules committee. “I would tell you that nothing is more important.”

First, a look at the data:

• Participation in high school football, after trending down from 2015 through 2022, slightly has increased each of the past two years: 1,031,508 played 11-man football during the 2023 season, an increase of about 3,000 from the previous season, per data compiled by the National Federation for High Schools.

• The downside: The numbers are still down from the 1,136,301 recorded in 2009, and when you account for population growth, it’s a lower percentage of the available talent pool.

• At the same time, the number of colleges and universities sponsoring football teams has continued to climb: 774 this season, including six new ones this fall, with 51 new programs since 2008, per the National Football Foundation. And the number of FBS (formerly Division I-A) schools has grown from 112 in 1998 to 134 this year, as more schools chase the dollars in the game.

So there are more college teams but a static amount of talent. The obvious conclusion: Smart and fellow coaches may be right because the supply of talent hasn’t kept up with the demand.

Another factor, as Carter pointed to, is children not playing football, or at least tackle football, until later, whether it was middle school or even high school. Smart pointed to regulations at the high school level, aimed at safety, for the number of practices per week and the amount of tackling and physical contact.

“High school’s not having as much of an opportunity to develop kids because their practice regimen and practice schedule is tougher,” Smart said. “It’s a trickle-up effect, so we get the guys coming from the high school level.”

Smart, it should be pointed out, doesn’t necessarily have a problem with that. He often has talked about wanting the game to be safe for his son, who is 12 and has played football. Smart is on the NCAA rules committee and has been a part of making rules aimed at making the game safer.

The NCAA’s most tangible change was the targeting rule, which went into effect as a 15-yard penalty in 2013, then an automatic ejection a year later. Fans, coaches and players have maligned the rule, but it’s not going anywhere because it’s working.

“I know a lot of times fans don’t love targeting. But honestly this is one of the best rules we’ve instituted,” Shaw said.

The rule intended to change behavior, away from headhunting and dangerous hits, and Shaw pointed to data as well as anecdotal evidence that it has worked. The number of targeting calls has trended down the last four years and was at 0.16 per game last season. And it’s not because officials are looking the other way but because players have adjusted their play because of the rule.

“That’s really good for our game,” Shaw said. “What we’ve seen is it’s changed player behavior, in their technique, how they block, how they tackle, their approach, how they use their helmet.”

Beyond targeting, the rules committee constantly has studied changes for safety purposes. It made changes to rules on blocking below the waist, to lessen knee injuries and eliminated blindside blocks.

It looked at the number of plays per game, phrasing them as “exposures.” There was a push to get fewer of them, mainly for safety reasons, but it gets more attention for making game times shorter.  The committee took 4.5-5 plays out of games, on average, thanks to the changes, most notably not stopping the clock on first downs. Fans complained about shorter games, but the aim of fewer exposures was hit, so that’s also not changing.

“The progress we’ve made there has been really good for our game, maybe saving our game,” Shaw said.

There also has been a focus on equipment, especially helmet technology. Shaw predicts that in a few years, there will be position-specific helmets, using data being compiled right now about what kind of impacts to the head each position takes. A safety needs a different helmet from a lineman, for instance, because they don’t have the repetitive hits of a lineman, but the safety needs a helmet to account for hits while on the run.

All of this, of course, followed years of bad publicity over safety in the game. And while it had a tangible impact on participation, the data says it may be reversing, not just at the high school level.

The Sports and Fitness Industry Association, which tracks participation at all youth levels, provided data that showed:

• Participation rates for 13-17-year-olds in tackle football declined from 2012 to 2017 but then increased the next six years.

• Participation rates for 6-12-year-olds in tackle football were “flat to slightly up” during the past 12 years.

• Tackle football participation did decline after 2010, “but the decline has stopped and participation stabilized in recent years” and participation has gone up each year since 2020.

“This set of data show conclusively that the discussion of tackle football participation being down dramatically and on a consistent downward trajectory is simply not true,” Tom Cove of the SFIA wrote in a report.  “And, in fact, after some challenges around the concussion issues in 2011-17 time period, tackle football participation numbers have been pretty stable and overall good.”

Hatchell pointed to flag football as a growing sport. The sport will be in the 2028 Olympics, and the number of high school girls playing flag football more than doubled last year to just fewer than 43,000.

“It’s exploding. Not just growing but exploding,” Hatchell said.

Hatchell said he and other football advocates don’t see flag football as a long-term replacement for tackle football but rather working in conjunction with it. There is agreement throughout tackle football to keep making the game safer so parents are willing to let their children play. The popularity of the game, at least in TV ratings and attendance, puts the sport in a good spot to risk those changes and sacrifice parts of the game if it means fewer injuries.

That’s not changing. And the game is not going back to the way it was.

“As the parent of someone who played, you encourage them to play tough and strong. But you want it to be safe,” Hatchell said. “That’s the No. 1 thing. And I think the rule changes have been really good about that.”

(Top photo: Andrew Nelles / USA Today)

Steve McNair’s football story has been told plenty. Fans know how he emerged from being a star quarterback at HBCU Alcorn State to becoming a Heisman Trophy finalist and, eventually, the No. 3 pick in the 1995 NFL Draft by the Houston Oilers.

He led the Tennessee Titans to Super Bowl XXXIV. He was the 2003 NFL co-MVP with Peyton Manning and was regarded as one of the toughest quarterbacks to play because of his physical style over 13 seasons with the Oilers/Titans and Baltimore Ravens. His No. 9 was retired by the Titans in 2019, and he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame (2012) and the College Football Hall of Fame (2020).

But the questions surrounding McNair’s death have persisted for more than 15 years.

“Untold: The Murder of Air McNair” is the new Netflix documentary that seeks to tell the story of how he became an NFL star and fan favorite while delving into the circumstances surrounding his murder on July 4, 2009, in Nashville.

The documentary, however, doesn’t offer much aside from what’s already been told.

There is the official story from authorities: McNair was shot and killed by his mistress, 20-year-old Sahel “Jenni” Kazemi, who took her own life next to him, allegedly amid financial concerns and a realization that the 36-year-old McNair was having more than one extramarital affair.

There are mentions of other theories, namely those from private investigator Vincent Hill, a former Nashville police officer who wrote a book noting problems he saw in the investigation. Also addressed in the documentary are questions about Adrian Gilliam, the convicted felon who was found to have sold Kazemi the gun used in the crime.

McNair’s friend, Wayne Neely, discovered the bodies and is shown in the film offering detectives cash while being interviewed, but there’s no explanation as to why a man who was a person of interest is offering police money.

McNair’s good friend and Alcorn State teammate, Robert Gaddy, discussed a $13,000 dispute involving a business venture with McNair that had them on shaky terms, but he expressed regret as to whether that kept him from being in position to help McNair. Neely called Gaddy from the crime scene, and it was Gaddy who called the police.

One of the film’s more gripping moments is Gaddy discussing the weight of living amid conspiracies that suggested he had something to do with McNair’s death and not wanting to say more out of respect for McNair’s family, which includes his widow, Mechelle, and his four children.

Mechelle is not interviewed in the film.

In the documentary, McNair’s coach in Tennessee, Jeff Fisher, expressed that some things about McNair’s death don’t add up, but he didn’t want to speculate about what might have led to his death.

The film is less than an hour and there was an opportunity to delve more into McNair’s post-football story. But hearing so much about McNair the football player felt out of place at times. You can’t tell his story without discussing his NFL career, but what Fisher said to McNair after losing the Super Bowl seemed less important than the conversations they might have had after his career.

What was McNair’s mindset about life after football? Are there lessons to be learned?

Kazemi was believed to have found out about another woman, Leah Ignagni, who McNair also saw in the days before his death. A tape of Ignagni’s interview with police was played during the film where she states she’d only been seeing McNair for a short time and was just having fun with him. Learning more about this, however, doesn’t tell us about McNair and his life after football.

Mechelle has spoken candidly in the past, saying she knew about other people involved with her husband but did not know Kazemi.

It’s obvious McNair was beloved. Even Kazemi’s ex-boyfriend, Keith Norfleet, admitted in the documentary McNair was his favorite player growing up. He discussed the awkwardness of breaking up with Kazemi only to see her in a relationship with his favorite football player.

But there isn’t more as to why McNair was beloved beyond the field, which might have helped to explain why he stayed connected to Nashville after retiring following the 2007 season. I learned more about Norfleet than I did about McNair or Kazemi.

Perhaps it was best to let McNair’s football legacy stand on its own rather than rehash how he died.

(Top photo: Doug Pensinger / Getty Images)

Three days after the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) announced that world No. 1 Jannik Sinner had tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug, the Italian confirmed that he had parted ways with the two men at the heart of the doping case that rocked the tennis world this week. In a press conference Friday, he said he was relieved the news was out after months of investigation.

In his first public comments, Sinner said he had taken solace in knowing that he had never intentionally done anything wrong, but needed to break from the trainer and physiotherapist responsible for allowing the prohibited substance to enter his system.

“Because of these mistakes, I’m not feeling that confident to continue with them,” Sinner said of Umberto Ferrara, his fitness coach, and Giacomo Naldi, his physiotherapist, during a news conference ahead of the U.S. Open. “I was struggling a lot in the last months. Now I was waiting for the result, and now I just need some clean air.”

Ferrara and Naldi had been part of the close-knit crew that has helped Sinner, the 22-year-old Italian reach the pinnacle of the sport.

“We have decided to part ways and are not working together anymore,” Sinner’s spokesperson stated on behalf of the team. “We wish them the best of luck.”

Naldi had not accompanied Sinner to any events since Halle, a June grass-court tournament in Germany that serves as a tuneup for Wimbledon. Ferrara had not been with Sinner since Wimbledon, which ended in mid-July.

During all those months, Sinner has been balancing the stress of trying to clear his name through the arduous anti-doping litigation process with being the world’s top-ranked tennis player and trying to win actual tournaments.

Sinner first tested positive during Indian Wells, where he lost in the semifinals to Carlos Alcaraz (George Walker/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

“It was a long process,” Sinner said. “I was always concerned that it might come out at some point. In the beginning it was a different view, but then after, you know, it was a little bit more complicated. I went through, me and my team and the lawyers, I’m just a simple tennis player.”

Since testing positive for clostebol, a banned anabolic steroid in March, Sinner has learned that being a top tennis player can be anything but simple.

He received a provisional suspension for each failed test, the first on March 10, during the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California, and the second on March 18 in an out-of-competition test.

An independent tribunal convened by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) accepted Sinner’s explanation that his two adverse analytical findings (AAF) for clostebol were caused by the actions of Naldi and Ferrara. It found “no fault or negligence” on Sinner’s behalf, but stripped the Italian of his ranking points, prize money, and results from California. Two independent review boards, also convened by the ITIA, reached the same conclusion after Sinner appealed against the two provisional suspensions that are mandatory in the case of an AAF.

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The review boards upheld those appeals, which meant that Sinner could continue to play while under investigation. It also meant that those provisional suspensions remained undisclosed to the public.

According to the full decision of the tribunal, released by the ITIA on Tuesday after a hearing on August 15, Ferrara purchased a product called Trofodermin in Italy in February. This is a spray that is used to heal cuts, and it is available over-the-counter in Italy. Clostebol is one of the ingredients.

Naldi then cut himself using a scalpel that he used to treat callouses on Sinner’s feet at the tournament, before using that spray to help heal the cut. He subsequently gave Sinner a massage on his back and applied treatments to his feet. Sinner suffers from a skin condition that causes itching, and when he scratches himself he causes small cuts.

Clostebol is an old steroid that was once at the center of the notorious East German doping scandals of the 1970s and 1980s. It can help build muscle mass and expedite recovery from intense workouts. Its presence in those healing creams available in Italy and other countries has been well-known to those who stay up to date with anti-doping information for several years, especially among Italian sports figures who have tested positive for it for similar reasons.

Sinner said Ferrara has long approached his job with a great deal of care, especially when it comes to nutrition and medication.

When the ITIA informed him of the positive test, he went immediately to Ferrara and he was certain his spray had caused it.

He said they went right back to the ITIA with the explanation, which led to him being allowed to keep playing.

“We had to figure out what would happen then in the future,” he said. “They believed in me and in us, and that’s why I could have played.”

That was a relief, he said, especially because he knew he hadn’t done anything wrong.

“I knew that I was very clean, and I knew that I was always very looking forward to be a fair player,” he said, though he knows that the positive tests will inevitably cause a hit to his reputation; a hit that he will carry it through this tournament and perhaps beyond.

“It might change a couple of things, but whoever knows me very well knows that I haven’t done and I would never do something what goes against the rules,” he said. “Obviously it has been a very tough moment for me and my team. It still is, because it’s quite fresh.”

(Andy Cheung/Getty Images)