Oklahoma drill

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title: "Oklahoma drill" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["american-football-terminology", "oklahoma-sooners-football"] description: "American football practice technique" topic_path: "sports" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_drill" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American football practice technique ::

The Oklahoma drill is an American football practice technique used to test and train players in confined full contact situations. The technique was developed by Oklahoma Sooners coach Bud Wilkinson. It has many names.

Description

The drill has several variations. The most common involves two players lined up 3 yd opposite one another.

Prevalence

Many high school and college teams use the Oklahoma drill as a way to kick off the first day of full-contact practice.

The Oklahoma drill, along with other full-contact drills, was officially banned from NFL team practices in May 2019 following years of declining use and increasing concerns for player safety. Veterans and high-profile NFL players rarely participate in pit drills owing to the higher risk of injury, with many coaches already refusing to permit the drill prior to its ban. A non-contact variant of the drill is sometimes run.

Outside football

Oklahoma drills have been used for entertainment purposes, as a type of combat sport.

References

References

1. Borges, Ron. (July 29, 2006). "Today's players don't know the drill". The Boston Globe.
2. Trotter, Jake. (August 21, 2010). "OU football and Bud Wilkinson's gift to football: The Oklahoma Drill". The Oklahoman.
3. Kendall, Josh. (29 May 2019). "NFL banned Oklahoma drill from practices. Here’s why Muschamp still believes in it".
4. Florio, Mike. (May 22, 2019). "NFL bans certain old-school training-camp drills". Profootballtalk.com.
5. (29 July 2018). "Lions training camp observations, Day 3: Frank Ragnow shines in first padded practice". Advance Local Media LLC.
6. Birkett, Dave. (2018-07-30). "Detroit Lions, Matt Patricia keep safety in mind with new Oklahoma drill".
7. Goodridge, Harold. (2024-03-19). "Hundreds gathered on Jacksonville Beach before fatal shooting to do 'Oklahoma drills,' but what is that?".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::