Targeting

On the second to last play of the TCU-Michigan college football playoff game last night, TCU apparently made forth down stop to win the game, but as the TCU defensive back was securing the tackle on the Michigan receiver, he struck him with the crown of his helmet bringing forcible contact to the head and neck area of the Michigan receiver. That is a textbook definition of the penalty “targeting”. The referees looked the play on video and announced to the crowd that after reviewing the hit, there was no violation for targeting. The video evidence was clear. The hit was a prime example of targeting, but it went unpunished.

The issue was that targeting is a 15-yard penalty with an automatic first down. That would have negated TCU’s game-winning stop and given the ball back to Michigan with 25 seconds left and the possibility of scoring the game-winning touchdown. It is obvious that the refs and the NCAA officials they were conferring with, did not want to let a targeting call potentially change the outcome of a college football playoff game, so the head referee stood in front of tens of millions of people and lied. With a straight face, he said there was no targeting, when the video evidence clearly showed that it was. He lied, and he expected us to believe something different from what we saw with our own two eyes. This missed call was not simply a referee in real time getting it wrong. Targeting is reviewable; the referees took their time to review it; they saw the play for what it was, and then lied to us.

If the refs are not going to make that call at that time, they should eliminate the targeting rule altogether, and also eliminate reviews. We cannot selectively enforce the rules and selectively employ the review process. Some people will argue that it was a good “no call” and the refs were correct in “letting them play” because it occurred with 25 seconds left in the game and the 15-yard penalty may have changed the outcome of the game. But in any one score game, a targeting call at any point of the game, could potentially change the outcome of the game. If the same play occurred on Michigan’s third drive in the first quarter, the refs would have called targeting and given Michigan the first down which could have led to a touchdown which would have been the difference in the game.