Good read on NCAA "targeting"

It was a bad call.

If you disagree then you can go frick yourself.

"Note the rule says contact with "the crown" of the helmet."

You need to read the full rule. Leading with the crown is always targeting. But against a helpless player, almost any hit in the neck or head area can be called as targeting and that makes the rule crazy.

From the website you linked (when hitting a helpless player):

"Leading with helmet, shoulder, forearm, fist, hand or elbow to attack with forcible contact at the head or neck area"

Was the QB helpless? That is spelled out in the rule.


"Note 2: Defenseless player (Rule 2-27-14):
A player in the act of or just after throwing a pass."

These two items is how the ref was able to throw the flag for targeting. That rule needs to be rewritten. Folks say it was a bad call but it really is a bad, poorly written rule. The game is slowly approaching flag football.

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they would say chest if they meant chest. The chest is not the head or neck area.

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White's face mask did hit the QB's helmet. The NCAA is trying to stop all contact against a passing QB's neck and head areas.

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wasn't really forcible contact as he didn't follow through. Wasn't even a particularly hard hit.

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This is why the call should have been roughing the QB with a 15 yard penalty but without disqualifying White. The problem is, what is the definition of forceful? It is subjective. White was running and that is enough for some to call it forceful. But he didn't launch himself at the QB so I would agree with you.

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Folks say it was a bad call but it really is a bad, poorly written rule.

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So how many of these targeting calls aka "really bad, poorly written rules" have DQ'd Bama players. Give us an example. Because oddly no one can remember a Bama player getting DQ'd. Surely there was at least one?

If only it applied to Alabama.

Two simple questions:

1) Did White make contact with the crown of the helmet?
--- Clearly, that answer is "No". He had his head up throughout the entire play.

2) Did White "lead" with any part of his body to the head or neck area, making forcible contact?
--- Again, clearly the initial contact was with his hands to Fitzgerald's chest. Yes, the facemask appears to make incidental contact to the right side of Fitzgerald's helmet immediately thereafter. But, if we take the word "lead" as meaning "initial contact", then this also does not qualify as targeting.

Anything else???

It’s a poorly written rule that is called inconsistently. Birmingham should of realized the impact to the next game and overturned. But Birmingham is being Birmingham.

Mack Wilson No-Call targeting




Another view:




SEC officials: "Targeting? What targeting?"

Example # 1 trillion that Bama fans can’t read

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Very bad call but was it the worse targeting call ever? They called 35 for targeting.

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They called 35 for targetting on that?!? And it was upheld by replay?!?

That is horseshite! The guy is clearly blocked into the QB.

That's one of the many reasons people HATE this rule. While we understand the INTENT of the rule, there is too much subjective application of it - like holding. The big difference, of course, is that a single call can affect not only the game being played but the next one as well.

It really needs to be carefully applied and consistently enforced. Neither of those two conditions are being met at the moment.