ECU targeting suspension overturned
SIAP. ECU Linebacker Jack Powers' (A+ linebacker name, I'll give him that) suspension for being assessed a targeting penalty in the second half of our game has been overturned.
Live, it looked like clear-cut targeting to me. On the new scoreboards' instant replay, it looked like clear-cut targeting to me. Whatever the on-field official saw in review apparently made it look like targeting. But to the NCAA one day later, it was not targeting. Maybe someone who has a highlight handy can throw it up here and tell me why I'm wrong and the NCAA is right.
It's also apparent that ECU's coach and fans are pretty salty about the officiating. Like, Penn State after a Michigan game salty. Not accustomed to seeing a speed bump complaining so much about how the cars are driving over it, but that appears to be the case here.
September 6th, 2023 at 10:54 PM ^
This penalty met the definition of the rule.
September 6th, 2023 at 10:56 PM ^
Honestly if someone can show me video that shows that JJ was not hit head-to-head by a lunging linebacker I'll be happy, because that means he took one less headshot than I thought he did. But this seems like a "if that's not targeting, I guess I don't know what targeting is" situation.
September 7th, 2023 at 6:05 AM ^
The definition is, and has always been:
Did a Michigan player make the hit? Targetting.
Did a Michigan player receive the hit? Not targetting.
September 7th, 2023 at 11:23 AM ^
Michigan penalties from Mars - 1
All other teams issued penalties from Mars - 0
September 7th, 2023 at 11:43 AM ^
What goes around, come around but not in Michigan's case. The deck is mostly stacked against us. Look at how all of those MSU players got off with a slap on wrist in the infamous tunnel incident from last year.
Case closed-MIC drop!
September 7th, 2023 at 11:09 AM ^
Probably a unwritten rule; if you wear anything with "Free Harbaugh" targeting will not be enforced
September 7th, 2023 at 5:44 PM ^
Okay Jon Jansen.
September 6th, 2023 at 11:21 PM ^
The ncaa will gladly ignore rules, like you know, talk about an ongoing investigation
The ncaa: do I say, not as I do
September 7th, 2023 at 6:13 AM ^
But remember, those same rules equal "honor" and "integrity."
September 7th, 2023 at 6:18 AM ^
They will also rescind bowl bans that are, per their rules, a minimum penalty for infractions.
September 7th, 2023 at 10:36 AM ^
His fucking teammate knew it was targeting! We all knew they were greedy and incompetent, but at this point the NCAA is openly condoning evil for the sake of it.
September 7th, 2023 at 11:00 AM ^
Logged in to upvote, thank you for doing the yeoman's work.
That's bad tackling form, and I never played the sport in an organized setting. He went high against a defenseless player who wasn't a runner.
NCAA is just sticking it to Michigan because they're run by petty imbeciles and their MO is stupidity first, second, and third.
September 7th, 2023 at 11:03 AM ^
That's not a tackle; that's a headhunting launch, lacking all subtlety.
But I'm really calling attention to Ware (#53's) sideline body language. That's a cold shoulder-shove if I've ever seen one, and Powers didn't even fight it.
September 7th, 2023 at 2:09 PM ^
NCAA is just sticking it to Michigan
This doesn't hurt us though. We've already played our game against ECU. It does affect Marshall (their next opponent).
September 7th, 2023 at 3:33 PM ^
I find it kind of bizarre that the NCAA could overrule the decision, even more bizarre than the announcers criticizing the call at the time. This is not even a close call. He led with the helmet, used the helmet as a weapon, and went high.
The ECU coach claimed there was no contact to the head, which is just bullshit.
September 7th, 2023 at 11:10 AM ^
ARTICLE 3. No player shall target and make forcible contact against an opponent with the crown of his helmet. This foul requires that there be at least one indicator of targeting (See Note 1 below). When in question, it is a foul.
ARTICLE 4. No player shall target and make forcible contact to the head or neck area of a defenseless opponent with the helmet, forearm, hand, fist, elbow or shoulder. This foul requires that there be at least one indicator of targeting. When in question, it is a foul.
Note 1: "Targeting" means that a player takes aim at an opponent for purposes of attacking with forcible contact that goes beyond making a legal tackle or a legal block or playing the ball. Some indications of targeting (emphasis NCAA's) include but are not limited to:
- Launch-a player leaving his feet to attack an opponent by an upward and forward thrust of the body to make forcible contact in the head or neck area
- A crouch followed by an upward and forward thrust to attack with forcible contact at the head or neck area, even though one or both feet are still on the ground
- Leading with helmet, shoulder, forearm, fist, hand or elbow to attack with forcible contact at the head or neck area
- Lowering the head before attacking by initiating forcible contact with the crown of the helmet
Note 2: Defenseless player (Rule 2-27-14). When in question, a player is defenseless. Examples of defenseless players include but are not limited to:
- A player in the act of or just after throwing a pass
- A receiver attempting to catch a forward pass or in position to receive a backward pass, or one who has completed a catch and has not had time to protect himself or has not clearly become a ball carrier
- A kicker in the act of or just after kicking a ball, or during the kick or the return
- A kick returner attempting to catch or recover a kick, or one who has completed a catch or recovery and has not had time to protect himself or has not clearly become a ball carrier
- A player on the ground
- A player obviously out of the play
- A player who receives a blind-side block
- A ball carrier already in the grasp of an opponent and whose forward progress has been stopped
- A quarterback any time after a change of possession a ball carrier who has obviously given himself up and is sliding feet first"
September 7th, 2023 at 3:35 PM ^
(965) East Carolina @ #2 Michigan - 2023 FULL GAME HD 60 FPS - YouTube
The hit happens at precisely 1:34:30
The fact that their rules "expert", analyst, play by play guy ALL get it so wrong means Peacock should never be allowed to broadcast a game again. Just fuckin embarrassing. Yeah I know Tirico is an AA local but be real - he is a very average announcer.
September 7th, 2023 at 4:14 PM ^
Dude, really nice. The photo is clear. The video is clear. The rules map perfectly to them. Thank you for finding and posting. What an amazing crock of NCAA this is.
Rob
September 8th, 2023 at 8:37 PM ^
Yep. Lowered and led with his helmet. Hit JJ in the neck and head area. I don’t know what the announcers were talking about. It was weird. And now this. I don’t get it.
September 6th, 2023 at 10:55 PM ^
Targeting is not real, it exists on the 11th dimension of string theory, and alas, Hawking is not here to explain it.
September 6th, 2023 at 11:05 PM ^
The NCAA decision on this is one more data point that proves I’ll never understand targeting.
September 7th, 2023 at 12:58 AM ^
Start the Free Harbaugh conspiracy.
September 7th, 2023 at 10:45 AM ^
Since Hawking isn't here and I did read, albeit with little to no comprehension, A Brief History of Time, let me have a crack at it.
Both targeting and string theory use complex geometry and surprisingly Calabi-Yau manifolds with Ricci-flat properties and the almost magical Kähler metric that satisfies both the Ricci curvature tensor being zero and the minimum requirement for targeting.
Although in standard uses for complex geometry, the complex coordinates of the Calabi-Yau manifolds most commonly only require six dimensions (3 complex dimensions) the same cannot be said for targeting, which needs the full 11 dimensions to achieve a positive definition.
The biggest parallel between targeting and string theory really lives organically in moduli space. In the landscape of vacua, whose properties are remarkable similar to the neocortex of most officials, there is a sweet-spot in the space time continuum where complex geometries continuously deform into one another while preserving various topological properties. That directly translates to nomenclature in the rule-books. This allows officials to consistently call or not call targeting based on a near infinite numbers of evolving parameters that may or may not occur twice and always be spot on according to the rule.
I hope this simplifies things for everyone.
September 7th, 2023 at 11:16 AM ^
Targeting is much like Schrödinger cat, it both exists and is non-existent on every play.
September 7th, 2023 at 11:30 AM ^
Damn it, I had my post ready to go and you copied it!
September 6th, 2023 at 10:57 PM ^
You can reverse penalties after the game?
Can I get another spot on that 4th down in Columbus?
September 6th, 2023 at 10:59 PM ^
No. You can't get a hamburger either.
September 7th, 2023 at 7:44 AM ^
How about a cheeseburger instead?
September 7th, 2023 at 9:17 AM ^
No. You'll get nothing and you'll like it.
September 7th, 2023 at 10:10 AM ^
Spaulding....
September 7th, 2023 at 9:59 AM ^
Hot take, but...
The call on The Spot was defensible, even though I disagree with it - it was borderline enough that it'd be hard to find incontrovertible evidence to overturn the call that JT made the line to gain.
The refereeing disparity up to that point (our 7 penalties for 59 yard vs their 2 penalties for 6 yards and umpteen no-calls for them as well) is not defensible.
September 7th, 2023 at 12:19 PM ^
I used that because it's easy, but I agree. The spot was never much of an issue with me. It could have gone either way and after all that had passed before that, there was no reason on earth to expect if to go our way.
The horrible officiating preceding that spot, particularly PI calls and no calls I've always thought was much more egregious.
September 6th, 2023 at 11:05 PM ^
I found it funny that the peacock commentating ref was wrong on pretty much every call that was made on the field. I have said it before and I will say it again, NCAA has to get full time refs just like the NFL. The guys that they put out on the field are often jokes because they do not invest more in them to make them better at what they do. The athletes invest too much of their time and effort to then get subpar officiating in their games.
September 6th, 2023 at 11:49 PM ^
While I agree with the sentiment of this, I felt that the guy they had doing this was awful. It felt like this was a “Peacock Moment”, as everything he said was opposite - and I agreed. He was bad at his job.
September 6th, 2023 at 11:57 PM ^
I completely understand what you are saying, but logistically that is a pretty tall task when your talking about 80 games a weekend. Not to mention the NFL does not even have full time officials either.
All 17 referees, the leader of each crew, have other jobs. Brad Allen (10th season as a referee) is a non-profit CEO. Tra Blake (second season) is a software quality assurance manager. Clete Blakeman (14th season) is an attorney. Carl Cheffers (16th season) is a sales manager. Land Clark (fourth season) is a chief building official. Alan Eck (first season) is a tax manager. Adrian Hill (fifth season) is an aerospace software engineer. Shawn Hochuli (sixth season) is a financial advisor.
John Hussey (ninth season) is a sales representative. Alex Kemp (sixth season) is an insurance agent. Clay Martin (sixth season) is a high-school administrator and basketball coach. Scott Novak (fifth season) is a sales manager. Brad Rodgers (fifth season) is a college professor. Shawn Smith (sixth season) works in finance. Ron Torbert (10th season) is an attorney. Bill Vinovich (15th season) is a C.P.A. Craig Wrolstad (10th season) is an athletic director.
The vast majority of NFL officials have other jobs. Scrolling through the list, we see rancher, real estate agent, banker, teacher, CEO, firefighter, engineer, federal agent, pharmaceutical sales, agribusiness, law-firm manager, and many more.
September 7th, 2023 at 6:49 AM ^
Enlightening article overall, but man. Two full "paragraphs" in that snip could really use a "CHART!" prompt from good ol' Bolded Alter Ego. We're so lucky to have him on this site.
September 7th, 2023 at 12:43 PM ^
An NFL ref's daughter played with my daughter on a youth sports team for a couple of years. Not really of friend of mine but someone I'd talk to now and then at games. He sold insurance. As I remember it, the comp for an NFL referee is pretty good. Enough for most people to live a fairly comfortable existence in most places. He didn't have benefits through the NFL, though, and that was among the bigger reasons he had another gig.
September 7th, 2023 at 7:33 AM ^
"NCAA has to get full time refs just like the NFL."
Ummm.. the NFL doesn't have full time refs. They're part time just like the NCAA.
September 7th, 2023 at 11:05 AM ^
I think you could make a better case that the NFL should have full-time refs.
September 7th, 2023 at 1:53 PM ^
You are correct. For some reason I assumed they were full time. The sentiment is still there thought that the NCAA needs to fall more in line with what the NFL is doing training their refs than what they currently do. I agree with the point that there are so many NCAA games per week, so it is not as easy as the NFL, but one of my main points in this is that the NCAA is raking in the money from the hard work the NCAA athletes put forth each year. These athletes deserve better officiating and that starts with the incompetence of the NCAA. It will probably never change since the NCAA has been this way for decades.
September 7th, 2023 at 10:56 AM ^
It was absolutely wild how the Peacock commentary seemed to ignore what we all saw. Even if the commentator had reason to believe that wasn't targeting, he never bothered to explain why that view differed from what a layperson probably understood based on the replays.
When you couple this with the misdrawn lines over the field (especially the red line of scrimmage on the disputed McCarthy TD throw -- it really was not over the actual LOS), this made for one of the worst college football broadcasts I've ever seen.
I do think ECU has some justification for being upset with some of these calls. The officiating was not great.
September 6th, 2023 at 11:06 PM ^
I always feel a bit embarrassed to complain about the failure to call targeting on the hit against Colston Loveland on the last play of the game against TCU last year — it was the last play of the game, so of course Michigan fans were really hoping for the call, and I understand the referees just wanted to end the game — but I will literally not understand how that wasn't targeting.
Like, the guy literally lowered his head, hit Loveland in the head with the crown of his helmet, and somehow ... it wasn't targeting.
I try really hard not to bitch about bad calls. They happen all the time, to both teams. But targeting, to me, is actually simpler than the pundits make it out to be. Don't lead with your head, especially if you end up hitting your opponent in the head. Full stop. Doesn't matter if you meant to injure him, doesn't matter what your intent was, doesn't matter. It's simple: Don't ... lead ... with ... the ... crown ... of ... your ... helmet.
The TCU guy did it, clearly, as did the guy who hit JJ last Saturday. Pure and simple. Targeting.
September 6th, 2023 at 11:51 PM ^
F**k the refs and their anti-Harbaugh agenda. Yeah, I said it.
September 7th, 2023 at 8:58 AM ^
Or, if you're Joe Bolden, "don't get blocked on top of someone who's down".
September 7th, 2023 at 11:06 AM ^
The play was over. He got pushed down from behind. It should've been unsportsmanlike conduct on Sparty.
September 7th, 2023 at 9:19 AM ^
Sorry, never mind. Old guy here.
September 7th, 2023 at 10:02 AM ^
Not to trivialize your point, but that doesn't register that much on my grievance scale since it likely doesn't affect the game's outcome since our win expectancy at that point was miniscule and I have way too much outrage about the TWO-FOLD FUCKUP of
1) overturning Roman's touchdown without clear compelling evidence and
2) FUCKING UP THE SPOT ON THE BALL ON OUR INTERCEPTION PRIOR TO THAT PLAY THAT WOULD HAVE MADE ITEM 1) A MOOT POINT
I usually try not to get sucked into the what-if rabbit hole of missed ref calls, but can you honestly tell me that that doesn't significantly swing the outcome of a 6-pt game?
September 7th, 2023 at 6:02 PM ^
Overturning Roman Wilsons touchdown is one of the worst calls I have ever seen in any sport. I have not met a person that does not think that call was wrong and it was the difference in the game.
September 7th, 2023 at 10:44 AM ^
Some years ago, an MSU player threw a Michigan lad on the ground, after the whistle, and the Wolverine made contact with a Spartan who was lying on the ground. They called the Michigan player for targeting. It was ridiculous; a textbook definition of "arbitrary and capricious."
September 6th, 2023 at 11:09 PM ^
I thought it was targeting, but to be fair I also thought they got hosed on both that first TD and the 12 men on the field.