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Joel Klatt offers adjustments to ‘flawed’ implementation of targeting rule

Paul Harvey

By Paul Harvey

Published:

Regardless of the original intent, it certainly feels like the targeting rule has gotten out of hand in college football.

The rule certainly had good intentions with the rule designed to push players away from helmet-to-helmet contact and wreckless tackles. Unfortunately, the byproduct of the rule that requires ejected players to miss the ensuing half of football has left people disgruntled.

You can now add Joel Klatt to the mix of people that would like to see adjustments to the way the targeting rule is implemented across college football. He recently discussed the issue with BTN’s Dave Revsine to offer his thoughts:

“I think the implementation of the (targeting) rule is flawed,” explained Klatt. “And I understand why the rule exists, and I’m not against having the rule in general, I just think we need to work on how we are implementing the rule of targeting. I believe wholeheartedly we should have two categories of targeting.”

Klatt went on to explain how the two categories of targeting would be similar to the various levels of flagrant fouls in basketball. One targeting call would be for malicious and intentional helmet-to-helmet hits while another targeting call would be for routine football plays that end up as helmet-to-helmet contact.

The bottom line for Klatt is that young players are missing too much game time for hits that are simply football plays:

“I am so tired of seeing these kids disqualified for these hits,” said Klatt.

You can check out his full comments below, courtesy of BTN:

Paul Harvey

Paul is a lifelong fan and student of all things college football. He has been covering college football since 2017 and the B1G since 2018.