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Refs inexplicably miss targeting penalty on brutal UCLA hit
Raise your hand if you know what targeting is.
Oh, nobody? Neither do I.
About five hours after Penn State’s Brandon Smith was ejected for a questionable-at-best targeting call, UCLA defensive back Tahaan Goodman was allowed to stay in the game for this brutal hit on Stanford WR Francis Owusu:
And if that angle isn’t blatant enough, here’s another look:
In what world is that not targeting? We’ve been over this so many times with refs using their own interpretation of the rule.
As I explained earlier in the day, targeting is called when a player “takes aim at an opponent for purposes of attacking with an apparent intent that goes beyond making a legal tackle or a legal block or playing the ball.” Targeting is also called with a player uses the crown of his helmet, makes contact to the head or neck area (with the forearm, first, elbow or shoulder in addition to helmet) or hits a defenseless player.
It seems to me that the hit from Goodman checks about three or four of those boxes. It makes no sense that a 15-yard penalty and an ejection were not assessed.
Owusu was down for quite a while, but was able to walk off the field and into the locker room under his own power. Oh, and he fumbled the ball, too. UCLA recovered and went on to add to its lead with a field goal after the turnover.
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Sam Cooper is a writer for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!
