Like so many things these days, the highlight went immediately viral. Type "Clowney hit" into a search engine, and you'll join several million others who have clicked and gasped — and keep clicking and gasping — at Jadeveon Clowney's helmet-popping collision with Michigan running back Vincent Smith in January's Outback Bowl.
But the crash — BAM! — that launched a legitimate Heisman campaign for South Carolina's monstrous defensive end? If it happens again this season, it might send Clowney to the showers, the unintended consequence of a tweaked rule.
At least, that was the opinion voiced last week by Doug Rhoads, coordinator of officials for the Atlantic Coast Conference, when talking with reporters about changes to college football's rule on targeting defenseless players. Mike Pereira, Fox Sports' rules analyst and a former NFL vice president of officiating, concurred — which led to others dissenting.
"If they're going to throw people out for the Clowney hit," Nebraska coach Bo Pelini said, "we should find another sport."
The definition of targeting — taking aim, especially at an opponent's head or neck, with apparent intent that goes beyond a legal tackle or legal block — has not changed. But the punishment has been radically enhanced. As in the past, a 15-yard penalty will be assessed. But now, the offender will also be ejected. Officials have been instructed, according to Bill Carollo, coordinator of officials for the Big Ten, Mid-American and Missouri Valley conferences, to "err on the side of safety."
The goal is to preserve a sport, an attempt, according to Michigan coach Brady Hoke, at "saving the game of football." The game's inherent violence — among the biggest reasons for its popularity — has come increasingly under fire as more has become known about the dangers of concussions; the NCAA (which among other issues, faces a class-action lawsuit alleging it failed to protect athletes from concussions) is attempting to tackle the difficult issue of players' safety by changing how players tackle. The hope is that by making the penalty for targeting more severe penalty, fewer serious injuries will result.
"Playing time is a motivator to our players, and we think this will have a pretty significant impact," said Steve Shaw, the Southeastern Conference's coordinator of officials. "The rules committee really believes this will make a difference."
No one is disputing that, at least. California linebacker Nick Forbes called the new rule "scary," adding, "You don't want to put yourself or your team in that situation."
But some wonder whether ejections might sometimes be unavoidable, because the biggest change from the past might be in philosophy. The point of emphasis for officials, according to several officiating coordinators, will be safety.
"Our default," said Carollo, "is to ... throw the flag and he'll probably be thrown out of the game."
All targeting penalties will be reviewed by replay, and ejections could be overturned (though oddly, the penalty would still be marked off). The penalty mirrors that for fighting; if the ejection occurs during the second half, the player will also miss the first half of the next game.
Carollo called enforcement a difficult thing, because discerning targeting is often a "gray area." But the clear intent of the rules is to protect players' gray matter. According to guidelines issued by College Football Officiating, LLC, officials have been trained to watch for the following indicators of potential targeting of a defenseless player:
Launching to strike an opponent in the head or neck; a crouch followed by a sudden upward, forward thrust to strike the head or neck; leading with the helmet, forearm, fist, hand, elbow or shoulder to strike the head or neck; lowering the head to strike the head or neck with the crown (top) of the helmet.
'It's important that we get this right'
The increased penalty came about, according to Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby, because commissioners and coaches "wanted a very aggressive rule and a rule that was going to keep kids safe and a rule that erred on the side of penalization, so that we change the way the game is played, so that we don't target. … It's important that we get this right."
That's precisely the concern of some coaches and players.
"I understand where it's coming from," Pelini said. "It's about the safety of players, and we're all for that. We just have to make sure we're not messing with the integrity of the game or the sport and how it's supposed to be played."
The short-term impact of the new rule is hard to predict. Walt Anderson, the Big 12's coordinator of officials, said targeting was called 17 times by Big 12 officials in 2012. He said by the letter of the rule, five of those calls should have been reversed — though it's uncertain whether they would always have been, given the sometimes-hurried replay review process. What's more, given the emphasis this season on safety, Anderson said officials have been told philosophy should sometimes have overridden other considerations. The five calls "were really technically not fouls," he said, "but they were correct by philosophy, and that's what we have relative to this rule that the rules committee and the NCAA wants officials to apply."
"The intent of the rules committee getting this stuff out of the game is when you think it's a foul, it is," Anderson said.
It sounds good, until ejection after a questionable call alters the trajectory of a game, perhaps even a season. Everyone's for a safer sport — until, say, a BCS title contender's star safety or linebacker gets ejected for a hard-but-clean hit.
"You're going to have big hits in football," Anderson said, "and there's nothing wrong with that, and we need to be celebrating big hits. But what we don't want to celebrate and we've got to get out of, is this culture of targeting where really we're celebrating an illegal act, a potentially very dangerous act."
But Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops echoed many of his peers when he said, "Hopefully, they're getting it right, because that's a big penalty, to have a guy tossed out of a game."
Some calls are easy to discern — a defensive back head-hunting, launching himself high, striking a receiver in the head. It's that gray area that's concerning. The Clowney collision, as one high-profile example, was universally hailed as clean — even Michigan's Hoke called it "a great play" — and everything we love about football. It happened in a huge hurry. Somehow unblocked, Clowney arrived in the Michigan backfield at full-speed, and although he hit Smith low, in the chest, he "sort of ricocheted up and knocked his helmet off," South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier told ESPN.com.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL COUNTDOWN: From No. 125 to No. 1
If it happened this season? That Clowney wasn't attempting to strike Smith's head might not matter. Although Anderson acknowledged many "incidental hits," in which "it would be unfair to disqualify a player," judging from some of the examples he showed at the Big 12's media days, other apparently clean hits and textbook tackles — eyes up, face mask buried in the offensive player's chest — taught by coaches at every level would be trigger a flag and ejection. That potential has some coaches worried. Washington State coach Mike Leach is among several who spoke out in recent days, expressing concern that the rule will be misapplied.
"Rules, in order to be effective, have to be enforceable and you've got to be able to see (the infraction)," Leach said. "If I get these guys across the room and I have them run full-speed at each other, and I ask you in a split-second to tell me which one lowered their head first, I'll bet you can't do it. So I think that is a huge problem."
And referring to the Clowney hit, Leach added, "That's why they have football and it's why football was invented and it's one of the greatest American games there is."
Dialing back the aggression?
While the rulesmakers believe some reinvention might be necessary for safety's sake — and that the increased penalty will help change it — some worry defensive players, for whom aggression is an important asset, might become too tentative.
"As far as safeties and linebackers, it's going to make things a little bit tougher," Akron defensive back Malachi Freeman, adding: "You don't want to think too much, because then you might try to do too much. You just have to play the game we've been taught to play. It will come to us."
Several coaches said they're considering changes in how they teach the game. They'll ask players to aim lower (which in turn could bring a new set of issues, for example with knee injuries). Boise State's Chris Petersen told reporters last week he has studied the fundamentals of tackling used in another sport. Playing without pads, rugby players wrap up and drag down opponents. Akron coach Terry Bowden said his father, former Florida State coach Bobby Bowden, recalled the era of leather helmets, when "we never had these kind of collisions because we were taught to move our heads to the side and body tackle."
No comments:
Post a Comment