T1B

to their rare credit, Big XII officials overturned a targeting ejection in the first half of the OU-BU game. camera clearly showed the db hit wr with his shoulder pads and the ref that threw the flag was completely behind the play....and it DID look like db led with his helmet from that angle...

meanwhile, during the review, Herbstreit was on some long-winded sanctimonious soliloquy about it being the "right" call...blah blah blah and totally wrong. Kirk is a little better since he stopped shouting and repeating the same two or three comments throughout the game prefaced with "like i said earlier"....(from the Billy Packer school of analysis....Brady Quinn does this a bunch, too....pick one or two obvious things like "converting 3rd downs is really important".... and repeat it ad nauseum)....but still.

In the Oregon/Zona game, there was a hit out of bounds during a kick. The refs stopped the game for about 10 minutes, and even marked off half the distance against Zona. Then they stopped the game again, and spent several more minutes spotting the ball... since the penalty was on Oregon. Yup, 10+ minutes to mark off a penalty, and they didn't remember which team they called the penalty on.

Which is bad enough -- except that was the third Oregon home game in a row where something very similar happened.

This call has zero to do with where the defensive player hit the RB. In fact this penalty is in place to protect the defensive player. Leading with the crown of the helmet is always illegal.

Targeting and Making Forcible Contact
With the Crown of the Helmet
ARTICLE 3. No player shall target and make forcible contact against an opponent with the crown 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. (Rule 9-6) (A.R. 9-1-3-I)

Then for the indicator, there is this:

Lowering the head before attacking by initiating forcible contact with the crown of the helmet

So this likely was a good initiation of targeting by replay. The video schmick added is mediocre at best and there isn’t a replay, but it sure appears correct for a 9.1.3 targeting call.

Ask the coaches the why questions on the rules. Spearing has been replaced by targeting.

As for the validity of this call, you just said his head was down so...

A decent number of targeting calls are booth initiated. This is good for the game if it helps get these dangerous hits out of the game.

It was a dangerous hit for him. His head was down and may have been on the way back up but he clearly leads with the crown of the helmet on this.