Kudos to Pop Warner youth football.

Acting upon advice from the organization’s medical advisory board, Pop Warner recently adopted new rules limiting contact in practice.

Coaches may no longer conduct full-speed, head-on blocking and tackling drills. These drills can be conducted from an angle, but no head-to-head contact is permitted.

Bravo.

This is the level of football that must be addressed if the concussion issue in football is ever going to be seriously addressed.

Simply put, kids need to learn how to tackle properly — at all levels of youth football.

National studies indicate that 3.4 million youths in this country are playing football. That’s where the future of major college football and the NFL will come from.

If their talent — and physical health — carry them that far.

Other national studies have revealed that football produces more concussions than any sport, that one of every 10 high school football players suffers a concussion at some point, 35 percent of those suffer repeat concussions, there is at least one concussion in every American football game and 67.8 percent of all catastrophic injuries in football, dating back to 1977, come from tackling.

We need to face the fact that the fundamentals of tackling have eroded in the sport in recent years.

Watch an NFL game these days. Defensive backs launch themselves into receivers. The idea of grasping them and bringing them to the ground has gone by the wayside.

The NFL itself is lobbying for federal legislation to be handed down to all youth football organizations dictating what practice techniques are allowed on the field.

Does it have to come to that?

Really?

Common sense needs to prevail here.

Football is a wonderful sport, part of the fabric of this country. But the game’s future is being threatened by this rash of serious head injuries.

Since 1990, more than 50 football players have died as a direct result of head injuries. That’s ridiculous.

Any high-contact sport carries the risk of injury. We all know that. People will suffer injuries playing any sport. We all know that, too.

But that doesn’t mean we can ignore the obvious.

Tackling technique needs to be addressed and doing so at the youth level will begin to solve the problem.

“Blow-up” hits in the NFL may be good for the highlight reel on TV.

They’re not good for youth football.

You can tackle hard. Just tackle safe and properly.

The Pop Warner organization wants to see the game played the way it’s supposed to be played.

And that’s a good thing.