Hate targeting penalties? So does Ted Cruz
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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A college football player tackled an opponent. The officials penalized him for targeting. Fans of the player’s team freaked out.
It’s a scenario that seems to play out multiple times each weekend during the college football season, including last week during Utah’s win over Cal.
Why isn’t Cole Bishop playing?
Utah’s star safety, Cole Bishop, was penalized for targeting during the fourth quarter of the Utah-Cal game and forced to the leave the field. Fans were so frustrated by the officials’ decision that they loudly booed for much of the rest of the game.
As Deseret News reporter Joe Coles pointed out in his coverage of the penalty, Bishop appeared to actively try to avoid problematic contact with Cal tight end Jeffrey Johnson.
“Bishop, who was in the process of trying to make a tackle, turned to avoid helmet to helmet contact with Johnson, but his shoulder made contact with Johnson’s head and neck area,” Coles wrote.
Still, the penalty was upheld after a review, and, on Monday, the NCAA denied the Utes’ appeal of the on-field decision.
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Although it won’t change the fact that Bishop has to miss the first half of this weekend’s Utah-USC game as a result of the targeting call, Utah fans can take comfort knowing that even United States senators feel their pain.
Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, addressed targeting penalties’ reign of terror during this week’s Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on NIL deals and the future of college sports.
“I don’t understand who gets called for targeting, but I know it (expletive) me off when it’s against my schools,” Cruz said.
His comment came in response to Jack Swarbrick, vice president and athletic director for the University of Notre Dame, who had joked that the NCAA should be empowered to set national policies on NIL deals if they can figure out targeting penalties, too.
NCAA targeting rule text
The 2023 NCAA rulebook says that a player should be penalized for targeting if he makes “forcible contact to the head or neck area of a defenseless opponent with the helmet, forearm, hand, fist, elbow or shoulder.”
The rulebook adds that the kind of “forcible contact” involved in targeting is something different than the force involved in a typical, legal tackle.
Signs that targeting has occurred include a player leaving his feet to launch himself at an opponent, a player crouching before making a tackle in order to create maximum force and a player lowering his head before making a tackle, according to the NCAA rulebook.
If officials confirm a targeting penalty after a review, the penalized player is disqualified from the game, as USA Today has previously reported.
“If a player is disqualified for a targeting penalty in the first half, he’s out for the rest of the game. If he’s flagged for targeting in the second half, he’s out for the rest of the game and the first half of the next game. And if one player commits three targeting fouls in the same season, he could receive a one-game suspension,” per USA Today.
Ted Cruz comments on college football
In addition to discussing his confusion over targeting calls during Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing, Cruz talked about his love of college sports.
“We’re in a time where it seems we can’t agree on what time of day it is. We’re yelling and fighting over everything, and yet every week, millions of Americans come together, and they cheer for their schools,” he said.
“I get enormous joy cheering for Texas schools every week,” Cruz added.
The Republican senator is one of several members of Congress to have introduced draft legislation recently that’s focused on regulating college sports.
Under Cruz’s legislation, the NCAA, athletic conferences and schools, rather than politicians, would update and clarify name, image and likeness rules.
“Nobody wants to see Congress and politicians deciding what roughing the passer is, and bad things will happen I believe if government takes over college sports,” Cruz said Tuesday.
