Targeting penalties have declined steadily since 2020, from one in every four games last season to about one in every seven games, NCAA coordinator of officials Steve Shaw said Friday.
“It’s a good news story,” Shaw said in a video conference to explain the latest proposed rule changes, which were announced Thursday and outlined a target proposal. “It’s a gradual declining curve. … If you go back and look at them from 2017, 2018 versus today, players play the game differently. Hits on the quarterback, hits on receivers, defensive players, the game has changed in a positive way and our hit rate shows that.”
The NCAA recorded its lowest three-year average injury rate since “the statistics were meaningful,” Shaw said, but that data is still preliminary and is being collected from last season.
The NCAA on Thursday announced a proposed one-year trial rule that would allow a player ineligible for the first target to play in his team’s next game regardless of whether a half penalty is assessed. Currently, players ineligible for targets sit out the rest of the game, and if a penalty occurs in the second half, they are disqualified from the first half of the next game.
The penalty increases with each subsequent targeting penalty, so under the proposal, if a player is flagged for targeting a second time during the season, he would sit out the first half of the next game. Only five players in the FBS have committed a second targeting penalty in the same season, Shaw said. A third targeting ejection in the same season will mean the player misses the next game entirely. In the past two seasons, Shaw said, no player has had three targeting fouls in the same season.
Last year, a total of 117 targeting fouls were applied and 64 occurred in the second half, so those players had to sit out the first half of the next game. These players will not lose additional playing time under the proposed rules if this is their first targeting call.
“It’s an experimental rule,” Shaw said, “and the commissioners want to see if we remove that carry-over, does that change behavior?”
NCAA rules officials are also looking for changes to players’ uniforms that reflect the NFL’s requirement of “no skin gap” between the knees and shoes.
“You can either wear high socks that come up to the bottom of your pants, or you can wear some type of leg covering — tights — whatever you want to call them,” says Shaw. “We’re looking for a no-skin gap. And if we have a skin gap and the officials recognize it, they’re going to send the player out of the game. And they have to be out for at least one game to fix it.”
If the officials must stop the game for a player, the athlete will be sent off the field and the coach will receive a warning. After that, if another player comes out “improperly equipped”, the officials will stop the play again and assess a 5-yard penalty. Any third and subsequent stops will result in a 15-yard penalty.
“Our goal is just to clean it up,” Shaw said. “A lot of it is the look of the game. We’ve seen a lot of pictures, a lot of still shots of the players, and the trends have gotten worse and worse. You can describe them however you want, but … very, very short shorts and tiny footy gold socks – that’s not a good look for a game.”
Ty Halpin, director of Division I football, said uniform enforcement officials and coaches, players and equipment managers go beyond them before they even get on the field.
“The rule really mirrors the NFL rule, and that’s where a lot of our players aspire, and rightfully so,” Halpin said. “They’re going to face it when they get to that level, so I think it’s up to all of us to get to a better place. Game officials certainly have some role to play, but it’s not making them uniformed police. That’s not really what we’re going to do here.”
The Division I Football Bowl Subdivision and Division I Football Championship Subdivision Oversight Committees must approve all proposals before they become official. The FBS Oversight Committee will review the rule recommendations on March 19 and the FCS Oversight Committee will discuss the proposals on March 23.
