Hawaii wide receiver Kalakaua Timoteo, center, drops the ball and gets leveled by UCLA linebacker Josh Woods, left, and hit from behind by defensive back Mossi Johnson (21) at the goal line, Woods was penalized for targeting and ejected, during the second half of an NCAA college football game in Pasadena, Calif., Saturday, Sept. 9, 2017. UCLA won 56-23. (AP Photo/Alex Gallardo)
Dalton Schultz hauled in a 3-yard pass from Stanford quarterback K.J. Costello and turned up field. Adarius Pickett didn’t waste any time to come in for the tackle. With the UCLA safety bearing down, the Stanford tight end ducked his head to prepare for impact. What likely would have been a clean hit to the chest sent Pickett to the UCLA locker room for a targeting in the first quarter.
Nearly two weeks later, Pickett is still baffled by the play.
“A guy that’s 6-6, he lowers his head and he hits my head and I’m aiming, as you can see, for his midsection and I get kicked out of the game for that,” Pickett said Tuesday during UCLA’s bye week. “I just don’t understand that at all.”
The targeting call has been a particularly sore spot for the Bruins this year as they’ve lost four players in as many games due to the rule. The 11 other Pac-12 teams have lost three players to targeting combined. The policy designed to protect players has instead confused many about how to define a good football play.
Outside of UCLA, Stanford’s Alijah Holder, Oregon State’s Jalen Moore and Utah’s Marquise Blair also drew targeting penalties this year in the Pac-12. Holder was ejected for a hit on UCLA’s Eldridge Massington during which the UCLA receiver ducked his head while securing a catch, the same way Schultz did. UCLA linebacker Josh Woods drew an ejection for a similar play against Hawaii.
Holder’s targeting penalty:
Woods’ targeting penalty:
The Bruins have also been on the wrong end of a targeting no-call that sidelined Kenny Young for a game and a half with a head injury.
What are the Bruins doing about it?
To adjust the stringent rules, Pickett said the Bruins worked on “hitting the strike zone” during Tuesday’s practice, but a problem often arises when the strike zone — the area from the chest to about the knee — suddenly shifts when the offensive player moves.
Head coach Jim Mora said two weeks ago that “things are just happening so fast out there that sometimes you have to inject a little realism into it” when judging targeting calls. He said the coaching staff will use drills that encourage players to keep their eyes up while tackling.
Defensive lineman Osa Odighizuwa and cornerback Darnay Holmes were ejected for targeting calls when they lowered their heads into offensive players. Odighizuwa hit Memphis quarterback Riley Ferguson in the neck area.
Holmes leveled Colorado running back Phillip Lindsay, who was, at that point, a defenseless player as Lindsay was still in the air after making a catch. Mora said he agreed with both calls.
“The problem is that anytime you duck your head, you lose the benefit of the doubt,” Mora said of Odighizuwa’s hit.
What does the rule state?
According to the NCAA football rule book, targeting is defined as “forcible contact against an opponent with the crown of the helmet” and consists of one or more of the following criteria:
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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
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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
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Leading with the helmet, shoulder, forearm, fist, hand or elbow to attack with forcible contact at the head or neck area
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Lowering the head before attacking by initiating forcible contact with the crown of the helmet
Notice that the final point does not include mention of the head or neck area, so the targeting penalty does not require helmet-to-helmet contact. The rule is not only designed to protect offensive players, but also defensive players by encouraging them to modify tackling technique.
The NCAA adopted the targeting rule in 2008 as a simple 15-yard penalty, but upped the punishment in 2013 to include an immediate ejection and one-half suspension. At that time, a video replay to review the ejection was added to the process.
“This move is being made to directly change player behavior and impact player safety,” said Rogers Redding, secretary-editor of the rules committee and national coordinator of officials for College Football Officiating, LLC., in a 2013 statement.
In 2016, the NCAA allowed replay officials to stop games and create a targeting foul when “an egregious action occurred and was missed by on-field officials.” This came into play on the hits by Pickett and Holmes as replay officials assessed penalties upon review, despite no initial flag on the field.
The NCAA Football Rules Committee discussed the targeting penalty this offseason, but decided not to change it.
“The change we have witnessed in player behavior has been significantly positive,” said Bob Nielson, chair of the committee and coach at South Dakota, in a statement in March. “The adjustment made last year to allow the replay official to examine all aspects of the targeting rule was a positive change.”
What’s a long-term solution?
The targeting rule has evolved and will likely continue to do so. On Tuesday, Pickett echoed Mora’s previous suggestion for a revision to the rule that would allow for varying levels of targeting: an incidental, flagrant 1 level that would carry a simple 15-yard penalty and a more severe flagrant 2 classification that would eject a player. Under the current rule, an ejection for incidental contract proves especially costly for young players with limited opportunities to play, Pickett and Mora said.
“If you clearly see that I’m not trying to launch myself at somebody’s head or another player on another team is not trying to launch himself at another player’s head, they shouldn’t be kicked out of the game for that,” Pickett said. “We worked hard all offseason for 12 games and hopefully a bowl game after that. You get so many opportunities to play the game of football and getting kicked out of the game, especially like that — early (in the first quarter) — that hurts.”
Stanford head coach David Shaw, who advocated for a revision of the targeting rule last year that expanded the definition of the “crown of the helmet,” agreed with the need for varying degrees of targeting.
“If a young man goes low defensively and an offensive player lowers his helmet and there’s helmet-to-helmet contact, personally, I’m OK with there being a 15-yard penalty,” Shaw said. “But if a defender goes low, he shouldn’t be ejected. It looks like he’s been coached (well), he’s making an effort not to go to the head. If an offensive player lowers his helmet, put the onus on the defensive player (to not make the hit), let’s take the 15-yard penalty, but let’s leave him in the game because it’s obvious that he’s not trying to hit the guy in the helmet, it just happened incidentally.”
Outside of incidental contact, Colorado head coach Mike MacIntyre told the Boulder Daily Camera this week that he would like to see the targeting rule expanded to include incidents like UCLA receiver Jordan Lasley’s late hit on Colorado safety Afolabi Laguda.
As Austin Roberts was going to the ground after a 30-yard pass from Josh Rosen last Saturday, Lasley lowered his shoulder to Laguda after Laguda had started slowing down. Lasley said after the game he did not hear the whistle.
“(Laguda) took a very vicious, illegal, malicious hit,” MacIntyre said. “I think those guys on those situations should be thrown out of the game. That’s as much as targeting is and put him out of the game. To me that’s a lot more vicious than a lot of targeting calls kids are getting thrown out of the game for.”