Never go in head down. I shoot high school football most Friday nights and some other nights. I''ll average 15-20 games a year. I've lost count of how many kids I have shots of tackling head down. It's wonder their aren't more of those injuries.
When I played, 84-89, every lineman, running back and linebacker had neck rolls. These prevented you from looking up when you tackled, however we saw less cervical spine injuries then too.
I was at my Dad's house for a weekend in August and the local news based in Memphis ran a story about a 13-14 year old kid who broke his neck. The thing is that his pee-wee "coaches" were teaching them to hit with their heads down like that. The boys supposedly told them that they thought they were supposed to keep their heads up but the coaches told them to put their heads down and spear people for big hits.
Needless to say those coaches are now being sued. Can't believe the number of dumbasses around that get into positions like that.
I read one article that said his family had requested that specifics about the nature and extent of his injuries, including whether he was paralyzed, not be revealed publicly. Before that, I had been looking him up every couple of days because I was hoping for some miraculous news.