Can this man's radical revision make football safer?

High school football starts Friday night. College football begins Saturday with programs big and small taking the field for the new season. The NFL season starts Sept. 7.

And as all those young men crashing into each other at top speed for our collective entertainment, I want to introduce you to Jay Myers, the man who wants to blow up football to save it.

He's disturbed by the growing evidence that repeated football collisions lead to long-term and life-threatening brain damage, in addition to the myriad physical maladies we always knew the violent game produced.

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Myers is from Loveland, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati. He played fullback in high school.

He's 82 and a former physical sciences editor for World Book Encyclopedia. (For younger readers, an "encyclopedia" is like a printout of Wikipedia, only with better research and writing.)

Myers read one of my recent columns in which I wondered if it was ethical for me to continue watching football, given recent revelations about chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a degenerative brain disorder linked to repeated blows to the head. A neuropathologist's study of 111 brains of deceased former NFL players showed 110 showed signs of CTE.

Myers believes he has a solution that can put an end to most of those concussion worries.

He calls his game Clermont Rules Football, named after the county where Myers lives. Clermont Rules Football drastically rewrites football rules, eliminating all but incidental contact.

Myers laid out the game for me in a telephone conversation earlier this week; he's also posted a preliminary set of rules and gameplay to his blog.

"This isn't flag football," Myers said. "It's something else entirely."

Football as we know it involves 11 players on each side.

The offense passes or runs the ball while a herd of burly linemen blocks equally burly defensive linemen to protect the quarterback or running back.

Myers' game calls for a 9-on-9 sport with no burly linemen. Instead, the game consists of lean, speedy players who all can run, pass and punt.

Clermont players line up on a line of scrimmage. The defense covers the ball handler but cannot rush him.

The ball handler can only take six steps — but he can't stand still and cannot move the ball forward. Instead, the ball handler has six steps to either pass or punt the ball to another teammate. All players are eligible receivers.

"There is no running game in the traditional sense," Myers said, "but players are constantly moving."

The quarterback can't stand in the pocket. The defensive and offensive players ahead of the line of scrimmage are constantly moving to either catch or intercept passes and kicks.

The offense may hand off or pass the ball to another offensive player behind the line of scrimmage three times, but after the third time, the next offensive move must be across the line of scrimmage by pass or kick.

If a pass or punt is caught by an offensive player, a new line of scrimmage is established and that player has six steps before he must pass or punt.

Like rugby, a team has six downs to score. There are no first downs.

To prevent defensive players from huddling along the line of scrimmage, Myers added a special 9-point touchdown called the "breakaway rule."

"A player can receive a kick or pass and attempt to run forward and reach the goal line before any opposing player," Myers said, "but if one defensive player reaches the goal before the offensive player, the offensive team is penalized."

So, instead of tackling the ball carrier, it would be a footrace to the goal line between offense and defense.

Defensive players are free to intercept passes and punts, but they can't touch offensive players.

If a defensive player takes the ball, his team automatically switches to offense and the six-step rule begins once possession is taken.

Myers envisions regular substitutions, like hockey, because of the fast pace of the game.

"People would get exhausted very quickly because there is so much running," he said.

If contact occurred, referees "would essentially be dictators on the field," Myers said. "They can heavily penalize or throw players out of the game."

Myers outlines his game with more intricate detail on his webpage.

He has a patent pending on the game. He wants to try to get together some pro players, probably from the Arena Football Leagues, to put together two teams and have an exhibition tour.

I liked Myers when I spoke with him. He came across eloquent and thoughtful.

His ideas have merit, though I admit the game sounds more like a physical education experiment than something people would pay to watch.

Myers is realistic. He already sees the biggest hurdle to making his game a replacement for tackle football.

"If you're just in love with smashmouth football, this isn't for you," he said.

The other problem is even bigger — money.

The top 100 major college NCAA football programs generated an estimated $5.6 billion in revenues in 2015, per federal education data crunched by writer Tyler Hakes of Ucribs.

That includes $53 million in revenue for the University of Iowa and $33 million for Iowa State University.

Forbes magazine estimates that the NFL's 32 franchises are worth a combined $75 billion — more than all Major League Baseball and NBA franchises combined.

Myers is just a man with an idea from suburban Cincinnati. He's going up against some long odds.

But a lot of great things have happened in the world when one person pursues their passion.

Daniel P. Finney, the Register’s Metro Voice columnist, is a Drake University alumnus who grew up in Winterset and east Des Moines. Reach him at 515-284-8144 or dafinney@dmreg.com. Twitter:@newsmanone.