NCAA Rules Committee proposes ejections for targeting players

[therealUT]

So long as football will be played at academic institutions, avoiding head injuries is going to take priority over the game. No reasonable person could have expected the NCAA to look at all the recent studies on concussions and then do nothing but assert, "Football is a contact sport".

I do not deny that this will result in a less watchable brand of football. I imagine that the NFL must also come to the same conclusion about NCAA football. Since the NCAA provides the NFL with its pool of talent, the NFL must see this as a threat to the entertainment value of NFL football. Maybe this will finally provide the impetus needed for the NFL to field their own farm-systems.

Honestly, though, how many in here would willingly deliver a concussing blow to someone else's head in order that one be fully-entertained for three hours?

 

[DarthVisor]

I understand the purpose of the rule, but it seems a bit much to resort to suspending and ejecting players. D.J. Swearinger received a one-game suspension last year for making helmet-to-helmet contact with a player from Vanderbilt. That, in my opinion, is pretty darn silly. It will give officials and the league leeway with which they can flag, eject, and suspend players.

 

[Thump]

I understand the purpose of the rule, but it seems a bit much to resort to suspending and ejecting players. D.J. Swearinger received a one-game suspension last year for making helmet-to-helmet contact with a player from Vanderbilt. That, in my opinion, is pretty darn silly. It will give officials and the league leeway with which they can flag, eject, and suspend players.

The problem with the rule is that it is a judgement call. Ok so DB X hits receiver in the head. Penalty and Ejection are the end result. I am ok with that if it is obivious that the DB intentionally tried to target the guys head and hurt him. However, if you look at most of the helmet to helmet contacts that are called, most of them are due to the receiver ducking/sliding out below a tackler. OR the receiver is in the air and coming down with the ball. Most of the people are aiming for the chest and shoulder pads and the receiver makes a move that ends up causing a head collision. If you penalize a DB for a blatent head collision, then it is only fair that you penalize the WR that tries to either A) Dodge the hit or B) purposely take the hit to cause a penalty. You could argue that if you make the penalty too severe for targeting that players will "flop" as they do in other sports causing them to take more head hits to get players ejected...

 

[rockytop9808]

The problem with the rule is that it is a judgement call. Ok so DB X hits receiver in the head. Penalty and Ejection are the end result. I am ok with that if it is obivious that the DB intentionally tried to target the guys head and hurt him. However, if you look at most of the helmet to helmet contacts that are called, most of them are due to the receiver ducking/sliding out below a tackler. OR the receiver is in the air and coming down with the ball. Most of the people are aiming for the chest and shoulder pads and the receiver makes a move that ends up causing a head collision. If you penalize a DB for a blatent head collision, then it is only fair that you penalize the WR that tries to either A) Dodge the hit or B) purposely take the hit to cause a penalty. You could argue that if you make the penalty too severe for targeting that players will "flop" as they do in other sports causing them to take more head hits to get players ejected...

I'm concerned about the things in this post and the fact that we're going to be entrusting the (potentially game-changing) ejection of players to a legion of buffoons whom have shown themselves to be completely incompetent time and again.

 

[rockytop9808]

So long as football will be played at academic institutions, avoiding head injuries is going to take priority over the game. No reasonable person could have expected the NCAA to look at all the recent studies on concussions and then do nothing but assert, "Football is a contact sport".

I do not deny that this will result in a less watchable brand of football. I imagine that the NFL must also come to the same conclusion about NCAA football. Since the NCAA provides the NFL with its pool of talent, the NFL must see this as a threat to the entertainment value of NFL football. Maybe this will finally provide the impetus needed for the NFL to field their own farm-systems.

Honestly, though, how many in here would willingly deliver a concussing blow to someone else's head in order that one be fully-entertained for three hours?

I don't see what this has to do with anything. Most of the hits that get penalized are pretty clearly not intentional.

 

[govols/cc]

There's just no way defenses can compete with the way the current rules are going. You haven't been able to hit QB's for years, and now they're making it so you can't hit receivers either. At the rate we've been seeing personal foul penalties called in the past couple years, with this rule in place we're going to be looking at 3-5 ejections per game. What team can survive having that many of it's DB's ejected? Teams are going to have to adjust their rosters and start carrying twice the amount of CB's and safety's because they' know they're almost certainly going to lose some of them over the course of the game.

Or tell the DBS to make sure they hurt the receiver. Live up to the spirit of the rule.