It could be a little harder to get called for targeting, but the punishment might increase as well.
The NCAA’s targeting rule is one of the most troublesome in its rulebook. Its intentions are not just good, but necessary, yet its wording and application lead to frustrating results each week.
For a while now, plenty of coaches, players, and fans (including this website) have called for a change to the rule: let’s not automatically eject players who clearly didn’t intend to break any rules. Punishing an accident doesn’t actually discourage any bad behavior.
Some college football officials have proposed and supported a tweak like this as well. It’s quite possible this would lead to more targeting calls, but with less controversial results, since officials would be dealing with lessened stakes.
The NCAA Football Rules Committee has indeed recommended two changes, which are not yet official, to the targeting rule. The first:
The committee, chaired by Stanford coach David Shaw, proposed a progressive penalty for those student-athletes who receive a second targeting foul in the same season. In addition to being disqualified from that game, the player would be suspended for the team’s next contest.
Instead of adding some nuance to the decision over whether to eject a player for a hit, this rule would move in the other direction. Not only could a player be ejected from one game for a totally accidental hit, he could end up being ejected from three games for two totally accidental hits.
However, the second rule recommendation suggests some awareness of the gray area between a true dirty hit and incidental contact.
Instant replay officials will be directed to examine all aspects of the play and confirm the foul when all elements of targeting are present. If any element of targeting cannot be confirmed, then 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.
Replay officials would have to either confirm the call or overturn it. Letting a call stand has always been the simple fallback, but this would mean replay officials would need to fully agree in order for the targeting call to stand, rather than merely not disagreeing with the officials on the field.
Basically, the benchmark for what constitutes targeting would go up somewhat and depend more on replay officials. It feels likely that would lead to a slight decrease in confirmed calls.
Limiting especially dangerous plays, in a way that is fair to the competitors on the field, is essential. If these rule changes could accomplish that, then great, but I still think reserving ejection for careless or deliberate targeting would do more.