Targeting the Targeting Rule
So, one of the more frustrating adventures for UM fans last year was the random and seemingly one-sided targeting calls, and/or non-calls. We seemed to be on the wrong side of virtually every targeting call. The fact that they all get thoroughly reviewed, supposedly under some common microscope, only heightened our frustrations! A question for the board: How does college football improve this process?
The automatic ejection for one incident is absurd. It should be fifteen or more yards and first down for first time and then the same plus ejection for second time.
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Just call an unsportsmanlike penalty, so two in a game and you are ejected. If its really bad there is the flagrant personal foul that can eject someone with one incident.
Then have committee that can look at all the incidents to determine if 1 game suspensions need to be handed out. If someone actually had 2 targeting incidents in a game he should get a 2 game suspension. One time incidents can still be punished, but hopefully it will be a more uniform judgement, and not one guy having to make a quick decision.
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How can you adapt to rules when you can be going in for a completely legal tackle and at the last minute the ballcarrier lowers his head, thus causing helmet-to-helmet contact and getting the defensive player ejected? The defensive players are not robots. They can't react in 1 microsecond. The rule is ridiculous in its current form.
Ejections should be limited to when a defensive player INTENTIONALLY targets the head of an offensive player with a hit. As in, lines the guy up and delivers a crushing blow to his head. I'm all for ejecting players for that crap.
There is no way to know on the field at the speed they are running if the ball carrier ducked his head at the last moment.
So we went from "let save runners from concussions be kicking out tacklers going head to head" to runners actually lowering heads on purpose to get the othe guy kicked out or penalized.
It's like taking a dive in the box / by the crease everytime hoping the ref will award a penalty shot.
On top of that, many concussions are head to shoulder or knee to head or ground to head.
If I understand it correctly, the way all booth reviews are approached is that the call stands unless there is clear evidence to the contrary. In other words, the benefit of the doubt goes to the official on the field.
That's what happened on the Bolden play -- the booth replay "official" did not think there was clear evidence one way or another, so the call stood. [He was wrong, but that's a different issue.]
The basic problem is that they are approaching penalty reviews the same way they approach non-penalty reviews (in bounds, fumbles, whether a catch was completed, ball spots, etc.). They are inherently different, in that the former considers INTENT, while the latter does not. So the criteria need to be adjusted.
For Targeting, then, just change the rule to require that the benefit of the doubt goes to the accused. Unless there is clear evidence of targeting in a player's actions, then the call gets either [1] reduced to some lesser included charge ("Roughing" or some such) when the evidence is ambiguous, or [2] dropped entirely when there is clear evidence to the contrary.
was with what I'll call "incidental" helmut to helmut contact. This occurred when a tackler was leading with the shoulder, but the opponent slightly ducked his head and/or the tackle wasn't so low to entirely keep the helmut totally in the midsection area. What they are creating with this rule, if they keep randomly applying it, is "new" football, where you effectively can't tackle above the waist - unless you want to risk a penalty. I agree with many posters that we need to look to ways to avoid CTE, and this is a key area to help do that, but the current rule and it's application isn't the answer. Changes need to be made. I'll bet Harbaugh has a solution.