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Targeting is a controversial college football rule. It’s designed to limit especially dangerous hits, but in a sport this complicated and fast-moving, it"s never going to be perfectly applied.
Fans and media are often frustrated with the rule’s seemingly inconsistent usage, and I’m not going to tell you it’s flawlessly enforced. I can remember some inexplicable targeting fouls, as I’m sure you can.
But one thing we can do is look at the rule itself, to make clear there’s more to it than just helmet-to-helmet hits. Too often, a targeting call that results in the standard 15-yard penalty and automatic ejection leaves fans pointing out a lack of helmet contact, but the rules do not specifically require it. A helmet-to-helmet hit can be a targeting foul, but all targeting fouls are not helmet-to-helmet hits.
From the 2016 NCAA football rulebook, language that is unchanged from previous years (my emphasis added throughout):
No player shall target and make forcible contact against an opponent with the crown (top) 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.
This specifies a hit with the top of the helmet, but not necessarily a hit to the opponent’s helmet.
The next item in the rulebook, including the aforementioned "Note 1," which explains the many additional situations in which all kinds of hits are considered targeting:
No player shall target and make forcible contact to the head or neck area of a defenseless opponent (See Note 2 below) with the helmet, forearm, hand, fist, elbow or shoulder. This foul requires that there be at least one indicator of targeting (See Note 1 below). When in question, it is a foul (Rules 2-27-14 and 9-6). (A.R. 9-1-4-I-VI)
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 indicators of targeting 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
This describes targeting as including actions besides just hits with the helmet, some of which don’t involve helmet contact at all. A shoulder to the neck of a receiver can be targeting. An elbow drop to a quarterback’s head could be targeting.
Also, the definition of "defenseless player," which is important. A hit on a kicker who’s in the middle of a kick will be judged differently than a hit on a player who’s trying to make a tackle, for example.
Note 2: Defenseless player (Rule 2-27-14):
- 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.
Things that don’t factor into the decision to call a targeting foul, according to the rulebook, include:
- how superhumanly tough the television viewer thinks football players should aspire to be,
- how much the fan in the stands enjoyed football’s previously higher levels of violence,
- the TV commentator"s worries that this is all becoming flag football,
- the coach"s conclusion that avoiding a targeting hit would require a player to approach a play awkwardly,
- or the reader"s assumption that the writer of this article never Played The Game.
Football changes. Football will survive, or it won’t. That goes for all of us.
All of this is an attempt to legislate excessive violence out of a sport founded on it 150 years ago — Spencer Hall on that is the best football thing you’ll read all year so far — but if this is the game we’re going to watch, we might as well know what the rules say.
And if this is the game we’re going to hope remains with us three decades from now, we’re going to have to let it evolve. "When in question, it is a foul," the rule says. We have to err on the side of player safety, and if that requires rules even more game-changing than targeting (it surely does), then so be it.
Elsewhere
Spencer"s TOP WHATEVER returns, ranking only the teams he feels like ranking at this moment and discussing Nick Saban"s negligent boating.
Those who prefer rankings that both (1.) conform to traditional numerical norms and (2.) have WASHINGTON AT EIGHT and TEXAS TEN SPOTS AHEAD OF TEXAS A&M will enjoy looking at the new AP and Coaches polls.
Bill C"s NUMERICAL returns, headlined this week by grades for nine top teams still figuring out their quarterback battles.
Kirk Ferentz now has an even more preposterous contract than the one before it.
That LSU lineman who whapped a celebrating Wisconsin player after the whistle blew? Suspended for a game.
Five big takeaways from FSU-Ole Miss, including more ways of looking at the Noles" amazing second half.
Jameis Winston"s halftime speech might"ve had something to do with that.
Is Texas BACK? I dunno, but it"s on the way, at least. Is Wisconsin BACK? That feels a little safer to say, right?
This was supposed to be a big home opener for Oklahoma, despite being a ULM game, with a remodeled stadium. Aw.
UPDATED: Ranking the SEC"s saddest Week 1 showings.
Speaking of, Ryan Nanni is tracking weekly how many SEC West coaches are on pace to be fired. Not which coaches, really, just how many.
PREVIOUS: At least the excruciating Ole Miss heartbreak came early this year.
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