Targeting rule change proposal
 

After watching another season of targeting adventures in college football I have decided that college football needs to look at changing the targeting rule.

My proposal comes from college basketball with their 2 levels of flagrant fouls.

A targeting 1 would be a player attempting to make a football play and hitting a player with the crown of the helmet without intent to injure the opposing player. An example would be the hit by OSU last night against Clemson. No intent and attempting to make a football play. A targeting 1 would qualify as an unsportsmanlike conduct towards the 2 penalty disqualification rule.

A targeting 2 would be a situation where the player intentionally leads with the crown or attempts to injure an opponent. Also included would be a targeting foul in the commission of another personal foul or in a non football action. An example would be the Oklahoma player last night vs LSU.

I would also change the rule about having to go to the lockeroom upon a targeting ejection.

I have a better idea than your solution in search of a problem.

Let’s stop calling for rule changes to appease the ill-informed mob every time there is a correctly officiated, albeit impactful, play that occurs.

You can change rules til the cows come home and people will still want their pound of flesh and find things to complain about.

The targeting rule was designed to get rid of hits exactly like the one that occurred last night and is working as intended according to all persons who actually matter.

+1

I am a life long Buckeye. That said, what upsets me is that why is the replay official initiating a review when the Game Officials have made a Ruling on the Field and have not asked for a review?

MTD, Sr.

Uh, that’s how replay works in college football.

Maybe you should Google “effects of CTE”.

The targeting rule is intended to force players to lower their “strike zones” to areas below the head of their opponent. It’s an effort to lessen potential concussions for both players involved.

The replay officials have the authority (and responsibility) to enforce the targeting rule even if it isn’t initially seen or called on the field. The play in the OK-LSU game is a prime example.

I don't have a problem with being CTE pro-active but there was a Game Official right on top of the play.

What bothered Buckeye fans infinity more was the overturning of the fumble recovery and TD.

MTD, Sr.

If I was a certain guy on the other site, I would post a random picture to show my total agreement with all of this statement. :D

Peace

I don't agree that allowing some discretion to distinguish non-flagrant fouls when there's no aggravating factor is appeasing any mob. Both the NFL and HS allow that, I don't agree with the one-size, zero tolerance approach in NCAA.

Saturday showed both extremes. The call in OK-LSU was blatant, flagrant, and a perfect example of what should result in ejection. On the same day, the OSU call was the other end of the spectrum - a player attempting to wrap, with a low strike zone until the QB lowered his level, that yes, at the moment of tackle used his crown. To treat both of these with the same extreme penalty is ludicrous IMO. If there's even a single aggravating factor like launch, thrust, etc. then replay should enforce an ejection, but that's too big of a penalty for non-flagrant, technical violations. Penalty, sure, 2 in a game, ejection, but a 2 level structure like HS is a very reasonable argument (and proposed multiple times by the B1G and ACC over the years, among others) and not 'appeasing any mob'.

You really want officials to distinguish between an attempt to injure and an attempt to piss him off?

I like it better when the rules are broadly written in matters of unnecessary roughness -- like just using that phrase -- and points of emphasis could take care of, you know...points of emphasis. You know, like just a reminder that heads and necks are vulnerable and important, and that officials should administer the game with that in mind.

I don't think football game officials should have quite as much discretion as rugby referees, but almost. (I think rugby refs have a little too much.) The rules makers have been requiring officials to make finer and finer judgments as to the facts on things they see. Is that any better than letting them make more general judgments as to whether a hit was gratuitous or gratuitously rough and/or extravagantly dangerous, even if only negligently so?

Which would you rather be screwed by: a factual determination that takes slo-mo eyes and looks different from different angles? Or a general judgment of opinion that people can disagree on when looking at the same facts? I'd rather take the latter. I'd rather blame it on an opinion regarding a grey area than to blame an official who had to rule on whether a hit was on one side or another of a fine definite line that's very hard to see.

Nobody will ever be satisfied by where that fine factual line is drawn anyway. One's general sense of how dangerous a play should be allowed could never be captured by such details. So why should the rules makers chase their tails trying to spell them out?

What should bother your fans is having to settle for FGs three times, and bailing out the opponent by committing two drive-extending penalties that led to TDs.

Multiple things can be true at the same time. Missing opportunities, settling for FGs, untimely penalties, and having a TD taken off the board by a completely unwarranted review are all parts of the story.

If called incomplete on the field, absolutely no beef with 'call stands', but there's no way that should have been reversed - it was reofficiating the play in a very hypertechnical way, not the role of replay. And before that just gets dismissed out of hand as sour grapes by a fan, it's almost unprecedented how many highly respected officiating leaders have said that. Terry McCauley, Bill Carollo, and Rogers Reddings himself have all said that the reversal was incorrect. Does that mean OSU wins? Of course not. But to deny the impact of a high-momentum, lead-changing defensive TD is equally silly.

I do not disagree with you. But....

MTD, Sr.

Don’t get me wrong — I agree that the play should have stood as called on the field. If this play had happened in the EZ, would anyone have argued that the result was not a TD?

I just wonder what the call on the field would have been in a game where replay wasn’t in use.

I disagree. In real time, when watching the game, I had an incomplete pass. The receiver never controlled the ball, he only muffed it. The muff did not change the status of the ball (it was a pass). Therefore, the muff hitting the ground results in an incomplete pass. Replay correctly overturned the call.