The Physics Of Friction In Football

Being that my father is a coach for a youth football league, I decided to write about the physics of football. There are many concepts in football that determine how the game goes, and of the plethora that are present, the three main concepts that we will focus on are friction, velocity, and momentum. Of course we will touch on other concepts, but these are the main three we will be focusing on. The first, and probably most obvious force in football is friction. Friction is defined as the resistance that one surface or object encounters when moving over another surface or object (“friction”, Merriam-Webster). Friction in football is what helps the players run on the field. For this first run of the game, the quarterback hands the ball off

The running back, after acquiring the ball, continues to follow through with the flow of the play (in this instance to the right), and maintains a constant seed of 22 miles per hour. When he sees a playable an opening in the line he thinks he can get through, he plants his foot on the ground, stopping his motion to the right, which enables him to change direction and bolt up field unhindered. To assist him in changing direction, two forces are cooperating with one another, the force of him putting his foot on the ground, and the friction between him and the AstroTurf. Friction is the most important force when it comes to running, and especially changing direction mid-run, being that friction can help with torque; a force that produces turning/rotation. (Life without friction would be a life on a just waxed skating rink). Let’s look at two different scenarios, a game on a rainy day and a game on a dry day. During the rainy day game, the coefficient of friction between the player’s foot and the ground is

Velocity is defined as the speed and direction an object travels (FLVS). It is three plays later in the game and the team has no choice but to punt the ball. A punter/kicker can always control three factors, the velocity with which the ball leaves his foot, the angle of the kick, and the rotation of the football. Each of these help with how far the ball will travel, and how long it will stay in the air, “hang-time” as Surfer’s call it. The rotation of the ball influences how it slows in flight. Many people may not know this, but if the ball spins end-over-end, the ball will expose more of its surface area to drag and it will slow a lot faster, rather than id the ball spun in a spiral, sideways. The angle of the kick determines mostly how far the ball will go. Id the kicker kicks the ball at a shallower angle, the ball will have a greater horizontal velocity than it would vertical velocity and thus travel farther in distance and shorter in height. However, if the kicker kicks the ball at a steeper angle, the ball will have a greater vertical velocity than it would have horizontal velocity, thus it will travel much higher, but not go quite as far across the field. Both of these influence pass plays from the quarterback to a receiver, and field goals from the