NCAA coordinator of officials says targeting calls haven’t increased

Besides the teams from the FCS taking down FBS foes — I’m still laughing, Oregon State — one of the biggest stories from the opening weekend of college football was the implementation of the new targeting rule. As you’re probably well aware, the new regulation means that players hit with a targeting penalty are to be immediately ejected from the game (or, if penalized in the second half, ejected from the first half of the next game as well).

According to Rogers Redding, the NCAA coordinator of officials, there were six targeting penalties handed out over the weekend in 74 FBS games, a ratio similar to what was seen in 2012 (when there was one targeting penalty for every eight games). The big difference, of course, is that the penalties didn’t coincide with ejections last year.

Interestingly, of the six targeting penalties called, only five resulted in ejections for the offending players. The outlier was Colorado State linebacker C.J. James, who was penalized for a hit on Colorado quarterback Connor Wood but was not ejected after the play was reviewed. The five ejected players were Oregon cornerback Terrance Mitchell, Tulane cornerback Lorenzo Doss, Texas A&M cornerback Deshazor Everett, Cal defensive lineman Chris McCain, and Indiana State defensive back Carlos Aviles. (Of the five, I personally watched the Mitchell hit live and can say he definitely deserved to be tossed.)

We will certainly be monitoring the consistency of targeting calls this year; it seems like only a matter of time before a key player is ejected in a big game. I can’t wait to see the conspiracy theories start to fly when that happens.

[Source: USA Today Sports]