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Tom Allen says it’s time for college football to revisit targeting rule

Hunter Hodies

By Hunter Hodies

Published:

Indiana head coach Tom Allen is completely done with this version of the targeting rule.

He has every reason to be though after what happened to linebacker Micah McFadden on Saturday’s game against Cincinnati. McFadden was tossed out for targeting after his helmet was shoved into Desmond Ridder’s by his own lineman.

Allen spoke about this play to Dustin Dopirak of the Indy Star and stood up for his player.

“I did review it, and I totally disagree with the call,” Allen said. “It’s unfortunate, and yes, we’ve turned it in and still in the process of going through that evaluation. But yeah, don’t agree with the call at all.”

Allen then continued his statement on targeting as he feels the rule needs to be looked at since it’s too inconsistent.

“I’m all about player safety, so that to me is totally the focus and should be, but to get more specific about it, yeah, there’s no question (the rule should be changed)” Allen said. “I think a lot of us coaches, we talk about this a lot. There’s a lot of agreement that the rule right now needs to be evaluated. The ejection for something like that is not what it needs to be. So if they want to go targeting one, targeting two, and whether it’s flagrant, just kind of like the basketball flagrant foul thing, I think that definitely needs to be. Just me giving my two cents here, I think that’s what needs to be done. It needs to be done soon because you can watch multiple games, not just our game, where that keeps happening, and it’s just not the way it should be.”

At the time of McFadden’s ejection, the Hoosiers were up 14-0 and if that play hadn’t been ruled targeting, Indiana would’ve gotten the ball back with a chance to extend their lead even further.

It ended up being a big turning point in the game as the Bearcats went on to win 38-24.

Hunter Hodies