Additional Targeting Penalty?

LumberJackSker said:
100% this and it drives me crazy that its almost never brought up. If a 220 pound rb runs untouched throw the first two levels of the defense and trucks a defensive back by stick the crown of his helmet in his face mask that should absolutely be a penalty if this was about fairness and safety. 
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I asked the Big Ten head of officiating about this at B1G Media Days last year. He kind of smirked and dismissed the whole thing, in a sense of communicating a knowledge that there is an unwritten exception to the rule only applying to defensive players. Drove me nuts.

 
Moiraine said:
I am all for having penalties like this.

That said, they have failed utterly in what they’ve created. They’ve created a penalty that is only ever called on the defense. Doesn’t matter if the offensive player moves at the last second. It’s still considered the defensive player’s fault. That’s just stupid. That’s just asking for offensive players to abuse it.

They should also be penalizing running backs who use their helmet just as often as they penalize defensive players. And like the tweet says, there should be different levels of the penalty.
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Yes but not entirely true.  It was aimed to protect the defenseless receiver from getting helmet whacked by a defender that doesn't know how to wrap up/tackle.

One of our guys got called for it on offense in a wham-bam sideline play this year.  Instead of a first down it put us behind the sticks.  Was either Morgan or Ozigbo, cannot recall exactly.  I will look through the games and report it (since I do that a lot :P ).

My thing is, a defender has more instinctive time (real time) to tell if a back is lowering his helmet (like Walter Payton did).  It's face to face / head on.  The rule is to protect the defenseless guy.  But the NCAA is going to point to everything since they opened up that discussion.  I don't necessary like it being called against the offense.  Hard hitting football is good when you are face to face, lowering pads and shoulders, with helmets.  Blind sighting a guy trying to catch a ball is not so good and should be penalized for safety precautions (unless it's the 1970's Oakland Raiders chuckleshuffle )

 
Agreed there should be 2 separate penalties for incidental, and malicious , but i think the penalties for the actions are fine the way they are. No need for this.

 
I thought the last rumor on this was that they were going to distinguish between targeting and incidental contact which would be a lower penalty.   If this is true and they go in the opposite direction, I'm guessing this is lawyer intervention and all about reducing liability with no regard for what makes sense.  This might increase the appeal of football for certain segments of the population that enjoy judged sports like figure skating and gymnastics with the inherent drama it provides.  

 
should not be a penalty if the offensive player is ducking to avoid/reducing impact at last second.  That is clearly not targeting (but we have seen it called).  second, they never call targeting when its a running back (either receiving or dishing out), the offensive/defense linemen (in the pile) have helmet to helmet contact every play.  they are often the ones who have concussion related problems later in life.  Point being, Football is a rough gladiator game where players hit each other for our amusement.  if you want to remove all concussions, make this flag football and leave all the gear in place.

 
admo said:
My thing is, a defender has more instinctive time (real time) to tell if a back is lowering his helmet (like Walter Payton did).  It's face to face / head on.  The rule is to protect the defenseless guy.  But the NCAA is going to point to everything since they opened up that discussion.  I don't necessary like it being called against the offense.  Hard hitting football is good when you are face to face, lowering pads and shoulders, with helmets.  Blind sighting a guy trying to catch a ball is not so good and should be penalized for safety precautions (unless it's the 1970's Oakland Raiders chuckleshuffle )
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Conversely, defense is innately reactive, so phrasing the argument this way makes it sound like it's OK to screw over the defensive player inherently because they play defense.

I think it's sort of a myopic viewpoint. Your example is certainly a big part of why the targeting rule was implemented, but only a part. Many of the penalties these days are not just happening by a blind side hit on a player trying to tackle the ball. They're also happening on open field tackles where both places have a viewpoint of one another.

If we think using the crown of the helmet, and aiming for the head area, is bad... then we should apply it fairly and evenly across the whole field. There's no excuse for the way it's currently being managed.

 
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There is a race to save football for future generations, but it's caught between creating more player safety and making the game unwatchable. 

 
In theory I like the bifurcation, but I worry it will never be enforced correctly.

Sort of like running into / roughing the kicker.... too often one would be called when it should have been the other. 

 
i just hope there is not an epidemic of these sort of (double down) calls........if you sustain the first one, seems like you might play with a lot of caution going forward?

 
Beginning in the fall in games using video review, instant replay officials will be directed to examine all aspects of the play and confirm the targeting foul when all elements of targeting are present. If any element of targeting cannot be confirmed, the replay official will overturn the targeting foul. There will not be an option for letting the call on the field “stand” during a targeting review — it must either be confirmed or overturned. Games using the halftime video review procedure will continue to use the current process.

The panel also approved instituting a progressive penalty for targeting. Players who commit three targeting fouls in the same season are subject to a one-game suspension. 
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NCAA.com

 
Given the cluster you-know-what that targeting has been, I'm glad the call can be overturned instead of still assessing the penalty. It feels more fair but I don't know if it will matter much. Anecdotally, the majority of targeting calls I saw last year were upheld as targeting and the player ejected, even some that I felt were completely off base. I think deference will still be given towards upholding the call.

The blind-side blocking rule change sucks from a fan perspective but feels like it was going to happen sooner or later.

As a side note, I do think it's garbage timing that these rule changes are announced now right after most teams have completed spring ball. That's 15 practices they could've used to get familiar with some of them.

 
Enhance said:
Given the cluster you-know-what that targeting has been, I'm glad the call can be overturned instead of still assessing the penalty. It feels more fair but I don't know if it will matter much. Anecdotally, the majority of targeting calls I saw last year were upheld as targeting and the player ejected, even some that I felt were completely off base. I think deference will still be given towards upholding the call.

The blind-side blocking rule change sucks from a fan perspective but feels like it was going to happen sooner or later.

As a side note, I do think it's garbage timing that these rule changes are announced now right after most teams have completed spring ball. That's 15 practices they could've used to get familiar with some of them.
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As much as some fans hate it, the football world needs to keep trying to make the game safer.  Fans can b!^@h all they want, but the fact is, interest in football keeps going down, especially at the younger level where future players are created.  This is directly related to the safety factor.  And, this also affects future fans too.  A drop in interest in playing at a younger level, will ultimately drop the number of fans who want to watch.

Now, I agree that there have been major problems with the rules that have been implemented and how they have been informed.  But, they will keep tweaking them and eventually they will come up with something better.  

PS.....everything I glance at the title to this thread, I think it says "Additional Tailgating Penalty".  Now, that would suck.  

 
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BigRedBuster said:
As much as some fans hate it, the football world needs to keep trying to make the game safer.  Fans can b!^@h all they want, but the fact is, interest in football keeps going down, especially at the younger level where future players are created.
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I agree, but I also think the sport has an inherent danger to it and people are going to have to come to terms with it at some point. "Coming to terms with it" could mean the end of the sport. If it happens, it happens, but I'd almost rather see that than an over-regulated, watered down shell of itself.

A loose analogy would be Formula 1. You can careen into a wall at 150 mph and die instantly. Neck braces, the Halo and seat belts are all great things, but there also has to be an acceptance that it's a racing sport. You can't really mess with the racing piece of it. It's inherently there. Violence is inherent to football so I think something has to give at some point, for better or for worse.

PS.....everything I glance at the title to this thread, I think it says "Additional Tailgating Penalty".  Now, that would suck.
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Now, THAT would be a real tragedy.  :lol:

 
Enhance said:
I agree, but I also think the sport has an inherent danger to it and people are going to have to come to terms with it at some point. "Coming to terms with it" could mean the end of the sport. If it happens, it happens, but I'd almost rather see that than an over-regulated, watered down shell of itself.

A loose analogy would be Formula 1. You can careen into a wall at 150 mph and die instantly. Neck braces, the Halo and seat belts are all great things, but there also has to be an acceptance that it's a racing sport. You can't really mess with the racing piece of it. It's inherently there. Violence is inherent to football so I think something has to give at some point, for better or for worse.
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Of course there's an inherent risk to play.  What the rules need to do is take out the un-needed risk.  

Meaning, if there's a good football play that for all intents and purposes is performed by a defender to prevent the offense to be successful, fine.

If there is a football play where the intent of the defender is to cause injury to the offensive player, that's not fine and that shouldn't be encouraged in the game.

Now defining all of that is the essence of this entire debate.  I think there have been a number of times in Husker games where there was a good football play that did nothing more than prevent the offense to be successful, nobody was injured....yet we had a player ejected.  THAT needs to be figured out and prevented from happening.  That takes away from the game.

However, we all know of hits in games where it's pretty clear the defender just wanted to go lay someone out and it really didn't have anything to do with the goal of the game.  That needs to be eliminated as much as possible from the game.

 
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