New rules!

The "player safety" card has been wielded once again in college football.

Half of you might lament the fact that the rules now penalize a player for his helmet coming off. Half of you might applaud it.

The kickoff, once the most interesting play in football, has been deadened in the name of player safety. Who is going to argue against player safety?

Well, you can't. It would be easy for me to sit here and be tough with someone else's body. No one wants to see a catastrophic injury. Kickoff is an explosive play. It's as close as our society comes to medieval jousting. It's also an exciting and beautiful play. Great special teams coaching is worth its weight in gold. Devin Hester belongs in the Hall of Fame ASAP because he's been a dominant and dynamic game-changer through special teams.

The new rules lower the percentage of full-speed collisions. But you can also bet, every college coach who's in charge of kickoff is going over tape to see whether or not their kicker is capable of a well-placed pooch kick.

There's no perfect legislation here, but if this saves one college football player from paralysis, it's a win. I will miss the full-speed, lightly legislated kickoff, but I am happy to report that I've never had to cover a catastrophic injury in more than 20 years of covering football. I'd love for that to go another 20.

Here are the rules changes:

-- Teams will kick off at the 35-yard line instead of the 30.

Get ready for The Game of Touchbacks.

-- Players on the kicking team can't line up for the play behind the 30-yard line, which is intended to limit the running start kicking teams used to have during the play.

It used to be a 10-yard headstart. Again, if a special teams coach thinks his kicker can pull off a pooch kick, this might actually ratchet the danger factor.

-- Touchbacks on free kicks will be moved to the 25-yard line instead of the 20 to encourage more touchbacks. Touchbacks on other plays (for example, punts that go into the end zone, or fumbles that go out of the end zone) will remain at the 20-yard line.

So, now all touchbacks aren't equal. This is stupid. This DISCOURAGES the touchback, which is the safest of all returns!

-- If a player loses his helmet (other than as the result of a foul by the opponent, such as a facemask), it will be treated like an injury. The player must leave the game and is not allowed to participate for the next play. . . . Current injury timeout rules guard against using this rule to gain an advantage from stopping the clock. Additionally, if a player loses his helmet, he must not continue to participate in the play, in order to protect him from injury.

"Result of foul" makes sense. OK, I get that. This does, however, make the head a target. If a Northwestern defender delivers a legal shot to Iowa quarterback James Vandenberg and Vandenberg's helmet flies off on a second-and-4, Vandenberg is on the bench for third-and-4. Thus, the defense is rewarded for knocking the helmet off the starting QB.

Illogical. This also brings subjectivity -- even more subjectivity, right, celebration rule? -- into the game. Define illegal outside of facemasking. And get ready for a whole bunch of "Hey, how did that kid's helmet come off?"

Here's the wild part (and a lot of you might disagree with me on this), this puts the onus on equipment managers to make sure the player's helmet is going to be vacuum sealed to his skull. Every team in the country gets fitted for equipment every year. The equipment manager takes this very seriously. Now, the equipment day in August could cost a team a player in a crucial situation.

Data from the 2011 season indicated that helmets came off of players more than twice per game. That's too much. The only lost helmet shot I remember in the '70s was the Raiders' Jack Tatum on Vikings wide receiver Sammy White. It was a rocket shot.

And I'm not even getting into haircuts.

-- The rules panel also approved new wording in the football rules book regarding blocking below the waist. Offensive players in the tackle box at the snap who are not in motion are allowed to block below the waist legally without restriction. All other players are restricted from blocking below the waist with a few exceptions (for example, straight-ahead blocks).

At some point, I think we have to ask how much are we asking the officials to take in and regulate? I can see regulation overload keeping flags in pockets, which isn't awful but certainly not the intent here.

-- There will also be a new rule prohibiting players from leaping over blockers in an attempt to block a punt. Receiving-team players trying to jump over a shield-blocking scheme has become popular for teams in punt formation. Receiving-team players try to defeat this scheme by rushing into the backfield to block a punt. In some cases, these players are contacted and end up flipping in the air and landing on their head or shoulders.

The Football Rules Committee raised concern about this type of action and proposed a rule similar to the leaping rule on place kicks that does not allow the receiving team to jump over blockers, unless the player jumps straight up or between two players.

I don't like this rule, but I will file it under "Trying to save players from themselves" and give it tacit approval.

In their minds, all players believe they are bullet-proof. They have to, that's natural.

We all know only Laron Landry is bullet-proof.