ESPN: Minnesota's continued problems with targeting is strange and a little troubling

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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per Bennett's Q&A:

Jeff J. emails: In the lead-up to the Minnesota-Northwestern game, there was much talk about whether Tracy Claeys was coaching for his job. In the aftermath of the game, which number should be most important in Minnesota AD Mark Coyle's evaluation: eight or seven? As in, eight wins or seven targeting penalities/ejections? (Saturday's hit on Northwestern's Austin Carr was particularly egregious.) Which number best illustrates Claeys' coaching and teaching?

Bennett: Minnesota's continued problems with targeting is strange and a little troubling. But I don't think you can pin it all on the coaching staff. Claeys is right when he says that a few of them have been bang-bang plays where the defender didn't have a lot of choice. Others have been dicier. Should the Golden Gophers undergo a serious review of their tackling techniques and teaching methods this offseason? That's fair to suggest.

But I don't think that will weigh at all in Claeys' future. Minnesota has eight wins, tying the most it has had in any season since 2003. And the Gophers still have a chance to beat Wisconsin and win a bowl game. It would be pretty tough not to bring back Claeys given what the team has accomplished this season. Ask yourself this: Who could Minnesota reasonably hire whom you're sure would do better?

http://www.espn.com/blog/bigten/pos...owa-with-its-qb-situation-tracy-claeys-future

Go Gophers!!
 

Lol at this whole email and response from Bennett
 

upnorthkid said:
Lol at this whole email and response from Bennett
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Agreed.

This is the most stupid rule in the history of sports.
It is such a subjective call on whether it is intentional or not. It is a very fine line.

Penaly...fine. But ejecting a player, and sometimes for the next game is just plain stupid and ripe for abuse by officials.

Throw out the damn rule.
 

I'm thinking the only thing that kept TC in check before this year was Kill. Now he and JS are like evil scientist out there.


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station19 said:
Agreed.

This is the most stupid rule in the history of sports.
It is such a subjective call on whether it is intentional or not. It is a very fine line.

Penaly...fine. But ejecting a player, and sometimes for the next game is just plain stupid and ripe for abuse by officials.

Throw out the damn rule.
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We all felt different about it last year when the skunk got tossed.
 



station19 said:
Agreed.

This is the most stupid rule in the history of sports.
It is such a subjective call on whether it is intentional or not. It is a very fine line.

Penaly...fine. But ejecting a player, and sometimes for the next game is just plain stupid and ripe for abuse by officials.

Throw out the damn rule.
Click to expand...

And Happy Thanksgiving to you too! :cool:

IMHO at least, the main fault was taking the "intent" out of the call. Strike the head or neck area and you're gone. Seems pretty extreme. Bet the thought was that now an official, not on the field, makes the final decision on throwing the player out of the game or not, it would make things fairer.

It sort of has. Most of the calls, including those against the Gopher D, have been warranted. Have seen a number of calls reversed by the guy in the "booth" too. The problem for Gopher fans, is we haven't seen any targeting call reversed against the Gophers. They've all stayed targeting calls. Have seen a number of calls on shots to the head or neck area reviewed and NOT called though. That has to enter into our thoughts on targeting as well.

Hard for a Gopher fan or somebody who watches a lot of College Football, not to think that seems very improbable.
 


With a couple of exceptions our targeting penalties have been completely accidental. When McGhee hit Carr, he was aiming at the shoulder, when someone got a piece of Carr, causing him to get a little off balance and drop his head, the blow to then was to the head and not the shoulder. Targeting by rule but not intentional.
 



Targeting calls always look "egregious" in slow motion.

In real time, most look like a great tackle...which is what they are.

The tackle on Carr was a great tackle. Were the Gophers supposed to wait until he landed on his feet, changed direction, ran 10 yards downfield, and then attempt to tackle him? The call was iffy, at best. It was a football play.

The worst all year was the call on Rallis. Not even remotely targeting. At best.
 

Didn't McGhee hit him face to face or was it with crown?

When is someone actually going to post actual data about targeting?

Conference numbers?
Team numbers?



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highwayman said:
Targeting calls always look "egregious" in slow motion.

In real time, most look like a great tackle...which is what they are.

The tackle on Carr was a great tackle. Were the Gophers supposed to wait until he landed on his feet, changed direction, ran 10 yards downfield, and then attempt to tackle him? The call was iffy, at best. It was a football play.

The worst all year was the call on Rallis. Not even remotely targeting. At best.
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Claeys said the call on Duke was 100% correct and put all the fault on his guy for the play so not sure how you can call it iffy. Guess I would trust Claeys judgement if he says the refs got it right but what does he know?

Totally agree that the Rallis call was terrible and as has been discussed the one on Celestin was targeting by the way the rule is written but there is not a single thing he could have done to avoid the hit based on the QB's late slide.

I would expect them to add an intent angle to the rule in the off season and cancel the auto ejection. You have to call it when it is helmet to helmet but there also needs to be some common sense in regards to intent so that a guy doesn't get ejected on a play where they clearly were not trying to go for a kill shot.
 

When the the offensive player is deemed to be defenseless, it does not matter if there is intent, a launching or a crown of the helmet hit. Any contact to the head or neck area will be a flag.

There is a ton of helmet to helmet contact when the player is not defenseless. In that case, the defender needs to lead with the crown of the helmet for it to be a flag.

It is not that hard to understand the rule or to play good football while avoiding those types of hits.



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MNVCGUY said:
Claeys said the call on Duke was 100% correct and put all the fault on his guy for the play so not sure how you can call it iffy. Guess I would trust Claeys judgement if he says the refs got it right but what does he know?
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Duke was going for the big hit on the shoulder, instead of aiming lower and wrapping up to make the tackle, if he had aimed lower the hit would have been to the shoulder instead of the head. Going for the big hit, instead of the sure tackle was McGhee's mistake, that's what TC was criticizing.
 

nsmike said:
Duke was going for the big hit on the shoulder, instead of aiming lower and wrapping up to make the tackle, if he had aimed lower the hit would have been to the shoulder instead of the head. Going for the big hit, instead of the sure tackle was McGhee's mistake, that's what TC was criticizing.
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Looked like he was first aiming to jar the ball loose since Carr was being tackled. Another Rashomon effect I guess. Hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving.
 

GVBadger said:
When the the offensive player is deemed to be defenseless, it does not matter if there is intent, a launching or a crown of the helmet hit. Any contact to the head or neck area will be a flag.
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Assume you've seen a lot of College Football this year. Like a lot of penalties, holding, pass interference etc, that call only happens a part of the time. The big difference is none of the other mistakes by an official throws the player out for a game plus part of another.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving wherever you celebrate it. Hope it's a least a two day celebration. Forgive me if I hope it becomes a sad one starting about 2:30 on Saturday.

Oh, unless you're cheering for the Cowboys. Then take about 3-4 hours out of that celebration wish too. :eek:

Gotta assume that living in Golden Valley for some years now automatically means you can't cheer for the Lions either.
 

nsmike said:
Duke was going for the big hit on the shoulder, instead of aiming lower and wrapping up to make the tackle, if he had aimed lower the hit would have been to the shoulder instead of the head. Going for the big hit, instead of the sure tackle was McGhee's mistake, that's what TC was criticizing.
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I wasn't debating Duke's intent on the play. If intent were part of the rule that very well may have been a penalty with no ejection.

I was simply responding to Highway's assertion that the call was "iffy" by pointing out that the head coach felt the call was correct. Claeys has not been shy about pointing out the targeting calls he doesn't agree with, the call against Duke in the Northwestern game was not one of those.
 

Targeting isn't supposed to be a 'fair' rule. It is on the books to try to train football players out of 150 years of dangerous habits. It is different from every other rule by design. They know that they are going to eject some guys who had no bad intent, that is the point. It doesn't matter if the player is going for the head or not, if he hits him in the head it is dangerous, and if football is going to last, those plays need to be eliminated from the game. The penalty would be pointless if it worried about intent.
 

bigdsrip said:
Targeting isn't supposed to be a 'fair' rule. It is on the books to try to train football players out of 150 years of dangerous habits. It is different from every other rule by design. They know that they are going to eject some guys who had no bad intent, that is the point. It doesn't matter if the player is going for the head or not, if he hits him in the head it is dangerous, and if football is going to last, those plays need to be eliminated from the game. The penalty would be pointless if it worried about intent.
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That all sounds great but we have all seen that the officials and NCAA are not serious about calling targeting. They are only calling head or neck area contact on so-called defenseless players.

In addition to the needless head spearing we've all seen (Mitch's concussion shot that wasn't called but was very, very obvious amongst many others) I was recalling the USC opener vs Alabama. The QB was in the process of being sacked by a lineman while the other end came in and speared him directly in the head at full speed. No call.

This is why there is outrage about the rule. Call it evenly, call it fairly. And yes, intent matters. The player need not be "defenseless" to be headhunted.
 

At least they are getting some pub... maybe Claeys is going with the Miley Cyrus approach for people to write about them.

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Pompous Elitist said:
That all sounds great but we have all seen that the officials and NCAA are not serious about calling targeting. They are only calling head or neck area contact on so-called defenseless players.

In addition to the needless head spearing we've all seen (Mitch's concussion shot that wasn't called but was very, very obvious amongst many others) I was recalling the USC opener vs Alabama. The QB was in the process of being sacked by a lineman while the other end came in and speared him directly in the head at full speed. No call.

This is why there is outrage about the rule. Call it evenly, call it fairly. And yes, intent matters. The player need not be "defenseless" to be headhunted.
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Agreed with this. It hasn't been consistent between teams or even within games, and THAT is the problem
 

TruDat said:
We all felt different about it last year when the skunk got tossed.
Click to expand...
You sure seem to know a lot about the badgers.

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GVBadger said:
When the the offensive player is deemed to be defenseless, it does not matter if there is intent, a launching or a crown of the helmet hit. Any contact to the head or neck area will be a flag.

There is a ton of helmet to helmet contact when the player is not defenseless. In that case, the defender needs to lead with the crown of the helmet for it to be a flag.

It is not that hard to understand the rule or to play good football while avoiding those types of hits.



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Tell that to the officials on the field and in the replay booth. There seems to be all kinds of different interpretations of the rule, and that is the issue. Shoulder to chest contact in one game is upheld as targeting, and straight helmet to helmet contact in another isn't even reviewed.
 

We can bitch all we want about how inconsistent and unfairly it's called, but that doesn't change the fact it's being called on the Gophers too often. They know the officials are looking for it against us and it's on the coaches and players to make sure they don't get the chance to call it. That last one was stupid. If it had been a Badger or a Hawkeye doing it, there would have been all sorts of outrage--some by the same people rationalizing it. Just as bad as the dumb part about serving the penalty into the next game, is the fact that the call can change the momentum of a game. You could feel the shift as Northwestern got fired up over it. Other teams seem to avoid it--the Gophers have to make sure they do also.
 

gopher ceaser said:
At least they are getting some pub... maybe Claeys is going with the Miley Cyrus approach for people to write about them.

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"I came in like a wrecking ball..."

live with that image in your mind for an hour.... [emoji40]

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