**** the refs

[AuH2O]

What are your thoughts on the physics of wrapping up a tackle but not taking them to the ground?

As a former wrestler I find that rule as absurd as going swimming naked but staying dry. Not driving a guy into the ground means you have to coach not to wrap up.

Targeting is complex and inconsistent. Yet there is an understandable purpose to it and it doesn’t defy all reality. This idea of tackling without touching the ground is utter nonsense.

Not sure I follow what you are asking. Just hitting a guy without wrapping him up is bad form, but nothing dirty or cheap, just bad football.

Targeting is a dumb rule. They made a new, complicated rule that relies on more subjectivity from incompetent officials. And they made the rule to "fix" something for which there was a perfectly good rule in place. The previous rules were simply never enforced.

I want to make the game actually safer, not selectively protect offensive players and allow offensive players to violate the most fundamental rule of safety in football.

If a tackler comes flying in with his head well below being inline with his body, it doesn't matter if he whiffs or hits a guy in the thighs. That's a PF. If a ball carrier dips his head well below being inline with his body on contact with a tackler, that's a PF on the ball carrier. Others can decide how many it takes to get kicked out of a game.

If a defender comes in to hit Drake Stoops at his waste, but Stoops in bracing for contact goes down untouched and ducks his head, leading to "forcible contact to the head and neck" I'm giving Stoops the penalty and maybe ejecting him for being the cause of a dangerous situation. I use that because that was an exact example of a play that lead to targeting against a defender last year or the year before. I don't remember who OU was playing.

Writing and officiating a rule based on the outcome, not on the action of the player is beyond dumb.

 

[Cy Hard]

Since it is the spooky season and people are dressing up in costumes, is it ok to ask my wife to dress up as a ref on a Friday night so I can thread title? Think it might make me feel better.

 

[AuH2O]

Will you at the very least agree it was a dangerous hit? And a hit in which the game is trying to eliminate?

Yes it was dangerous. Tackling is dangerous, and football is a dangerous sport.

 

[AuH2O]

The list of what defines a defenseless player isn't exhaustive. It's a sampling.


Note 2: Defenseless player (Rule 2-27-14). When in question, a player is defenseless. Examples of defenseless players include but are not limited to....

Yes, let's give more discretion and freedom to interpret rules to officials. What could go wrong?

Dekkers fits none of the definitions of defenseless per the NCAA, but we want officials to start deciding beyond the definitions what a defenseless player is?

These clowns can't make calls when explicit rules exist. I'm going to go out on a limb and say giving them more latitude to make **** up is not a good solution.

 

[Cyhig]

Yes it was dangerous. Tackling is dangerous, and football is a dangerous sport.

Seems to me you are just being argumentative. Good day to you.

 

[cycloneML]

Since it is the spooky season and people are dressing up in costumes, is it ok to ask my wife to dress up as a ref on a Friday night so I can thread title? Think it might make me feel better.

You complete me

 

[Steve]

Yes, let's give more discretion and freedom to interpret rules to officials. What could go wrong?

Dekkers fits none of the definitions of defenseless per the NCAA, but we want officials to start deciding beyond the definitions what a defenseless player is?

These clowns can't make calls when explicit rules exist. I'm going to go out on a limb and say giving them more latitude to make **** up is not a good solution.

The problem is that the definition of a defenseless player was not followed. What has been missing in the discussion is that the definition includes the directive that if a call is questionable, then the call should be made. No one can make a legitimate claim that the play on the field was not at least a questionable situation.

 

[AuH2O]

Seems to me you are just being argumentative. Good day to you.

I apologize, I'm not trying to be. I think it is a dangerous play, but I don't think there's really much the second defender can do to reduce the danger while actually doing his job.

All I'm saying is we can ask all players to use proper technique and not go high to hit players in the head or neck. When we goes into his tackle he's unloading to where Dekkers' thighs are.

Now he doesn't wrap up which is bad technique, but he's not going in high, and his head isn't down. When you tackle, you are going to have pretty substantial forward lean. So naturally your head is going to be down at a similar angle.

So I'm saying the rule is (or should be) intended to clean up what players can control. There are tons of plays where guys have their facemask parallel to the ground, both ball carriers and tacklers. And it gets completely ignored for offensive players, and it gets ignored if on defense if you get lucky and happen to hit them somewhere other than the head or neck.

I'd be OK with accepting some penalties for some inadvertent contact to head and neck if there weren't so many plays where the dangerous action is completely ignored because of outcome.

 

[HFCS]

Not sure I follow what you are asking. Just hitting a guy without wrapping him up is bad form, but nothing dirty or cheap, just bad football.

Targeting is a dumb rule. They made a new, complicated rule that relies on more subjectivity from incompetent officials. And they made the rule to "fix" something for which there was a perfectly good rule in place. The previous rules were simply never enforced.

I want to make the game actually safer, not selectively protect offensive players and allow offensive players to violate the most fundamental rule of safety in football.

If a tackler comes flying in with his head well below being inline with his body, it doesn't matter if he whiffs or hits a guy in the thighs. That's a PF. If a ball carrier dips his head well below being inline with his body on contact with a tackler, that's a PF on the ball carrier. Others can decide how many it takes to get kicked out of a game.

If a defender comes in to hit Drake Stoops at his waste, but Stoops in bracing for contact goes down untouched and ducks his head, leading to "forcible contact to the head and neck" I'm giving Stoops the penalty and maybe ejecting him for being the cause of a dangerous situation. I use that because that was an exact example of a play that lead to targeting against a defender last year or the year before. I don't remember who OU was playing.

Writing and officiating a rule based on the outcome, not on the action of the player is beyond dumb.

We've been penalized for normal tackles several times because we drove a guy into the ground. I've never seen this called on one of our opponents.

It seems impossible to be a good tackler or wrestler without driving your opponent to the ground.

If everything evens out we should be getting a lot of yards and drive extensions because a player gets tackled to the ground many dozens of times every game.

 

[AuH2O]

The problem is that the definition of a defenseless player was not followed. What has been missing in the discussion is that the definition includes the directive that if a call is questionable, then the call should be made. No one can make a legitimate claim that the play on the field was not at least a questionable situation.

It would have to be because forward progress was stopped. It seems clear that it was not at the point the player goes to hit him.

The overall targeting call is questionable, but not whether or not his forward progress was stopped. Put it this way, if the second hit doesn't happen, and the officials blow the whistle while Dekkers is still falling forward and they move the ball back a yard because "forward progress was stopped" people would freaking out, and rightly so. Dekkers and the tackler are both moving into each other upon contact.

 

[CycloneWanderer]

He's moving forward as the guy in question for targeting hits him. Forward progress was absolutely not stopped. In fact, at the point the tackler is about to plant his right foot and unload into the tackle, the first tackler is just starting to get a hand on Dekkers.

I think the question of the contact around the head and neck area is the only point of discussion. But again, here's an image right as the DB plants his right foot to go into the tackle. And if you've seen the slow mo from behind, you see the right foot is planted as he's making contact. So we are talking a few hundreths of a second from contact here.

The defender that takes Dekkers down is shown right above him and is just starting to get to him. Dekkers starts to get low, feeling or anticipating contact as a runner typically would do. The DB is a hundreth of a second or so from planting that right foot and unloading a tackle that is at Dekkers thigh level. The combination of Dekkers getting low and the tackler (shown just above him in the image) taking him down takes his head and neck down.

He's tackling at the exact correct level that is the safest for all involved. A second tackler and Dekkers getting low move Dekkers' head into that zone. And there is not a human that has ever lived that can adjust to that. He can't defy laws of physics.

View attachment 104426

This is ******** since he's going for the hit, not for the tackle. There is no shift in form in preparation for a tackle. Honestly, it's really bad form overall for tackling someone. The guy plants his right foot to launch into the ball carrier at as high a speed as he can. He doesn't attempt to hold any form at all other than the launch. He adjusts his angle slightly to hit the carrier more squarely as the carrier falls to the ground. He does all the things that you say he can't (be safe, adjust)

This is why he folds backwards awkwardly after the collision. He launched off one foot and didn't expect to hit both the QB and his own player.

 

[Cyhig]

I apologize, I'm not trying to be. I think it is a dangerous play, but I don't think there's really much the second defender can do to reduce the danger while actually doing his job.

All I'm saying is we can ask all players to use proper technique and not go high to hit players in the head or neck. When we goes into his tackle he's unloading to where Dekkers' thighs are.

Now he doesn't wrap up which is bad technique, but he's not going in high, and his head isn't down. When you tackle, you are going to have pretty substantial forward lean. So naturally your head is going to be down at a similar angle.

So I'm saying the rule is (or should be) intended to clean up what players can control. There are tons of plays where guys have their facemask parallel to the ground, both ball carriers and tacklers. And it gets completely ignored for offensive players, and it gets ignored if on defense if you get lucky and happen to hit them somewhere other than the head or neck.

I'd be OK with accepting some penalties for some inadvertent contact to head and neck if there weren't so many plays where the dangerous action is completely ignored because of outcome.

Only thing I would respectfully disagree is that the defender had his head down, Not only was it down, the defender lunged forward leading with the head in the down position

That in itself is quite dangerous. That is exactly what the league is trying to eliminate. Whether or not is is targeting or not doesn't matter at this point. But I at least hope that everyone would agree such a hit is dangerous and shouldn't be a part of the game anymore. And that is the purpose behind the targeting rules

 

[HFCS]

Who's coaching to wrap up? All players do is run into people now and try to lay the hardest hit on someone. I see it at all levels. Tackling is a lost art, that's part of thr reason you have plays like this now, nobody knows how to properly tackle anymore.

I'm biased as a wrestler but I'm guessing Lanning was able to switch to linebacker easily because wrestling is mostly "wrapping up". These penalties for driving a guy to the ground seem so dumb and unavoidable. Good tackling (or a takedown) involves putting a guy on the ground.

 

[AuH2O]

We've been penalized for normal tackles several times because we drove a guy into the ground. I've never seen this called on one of our opponents.

It seems impossible to be a good tackler or wrestler without driving your opponent to the ground.

If everything evens out we should be getting a lot of yards and drive extensions because a player gets tackled to the ground many dozens of times every game.

The roughing call against McLaughlin was horrible. The non-call the next play or two later for pass interference was horrible. They probably don't exactly even out, but both were horrendous.

We're going to get bad calls against us, and Texas and the likes are going to get favorable calls. We seem to get a bad rap as a fanbase because unlike the other lesser-named programs, we actually have fans that watch the games and give a ****.

It doesn't even out for us, and it's not going to. That's the world of college sports. Some programs get the calls and all the benefit of the doubt. We're not one of those programs.

Watch a basketball game at Duke or Michigan State. The officiating in those games are ******* ridiculous. Every bit as bad or worse than playing a game at Phog. Just the way it is.

 

[CycloneWanderer]

The roughing call against McLaughlin was horrible. The non-call the next play or two later for pass interference was horrible. They probably don't exactly even out, but both were horrendous.

We're going to get bad calls against us, and Texas and the likes are going to get favorable calls. We seem to get a bad rap as a fanbase because unlike the other lesser-named programs, we actually have fans that watch the games and give a ****.

It doesn't even out for us, and it's not going to. That's the world of college sports. Some programs get the calls and all the benefit of the doubt. We're not one of those programs.

Watch a basketball game at Duke or Michigan State. The officiating in those games are ******* ridiculous. Every bit as bad or worse than playing a game at Phog. Just the way it is.

In a world where players are making money, coaches are making bank, and gambling is legal, it's going to be vital for long-term sustainability that officiating be transparent.

 

[nfrine]

In a perfect world, Goldwater would be a ref.

 

[AuH2O]

This is ******** since he's going for the hit, not for the tackle. There is no shift in form in preparation for a tackle. Honestly, it's really bad form overall for tackling someone. The guy plants his right foot to launch into the ball carrier at as high a speed as he can. He doesn't attempt to hold any form at all other than the launch. He adjusts his angle slightly to hit the carrier more squarely as the carrier falls to the ground. He does all the things that you say he can't (be safe, adjust)

This is why he folds backwards awkwardly after the collision. He launched off one foot and didn't expect to hit both the QB and his own player.

You don't settle, break down and go off two feet to slow down or lessen a collision. You do that because in the open field you are more likely to whiff if you do this, and it allows you to get your full power behind the tackle. If he breaks down, tackles from a text book two-foot position, his body angle and "launch" are going to be the same.

But I do think you raise a good point that could possibly be an explicit point in a rule to be added to a "head down" rule. Maybe a head-on tackle like this should have to be made from two feet. I'm not sure it helps or changes much, but maybe it is some kind of queue that helps tacklers do it right.

I really think the size and speed requirements of the game now make it damn near impossible to make remotely safe at the college level. In some ways I think the needs to have these super fast cover guys in the game now leads to a bunch of guys playing that suck at tackling, and would get trucked by almost any player. So they just launch and hope for the best.

 

[HFCS]

The roughing call against McLaughlin was horrible. The non-call the next play or two later for pass interference was horrible. They probably don't exactly even out, but both were horrendous.

We're going to get bad calls against us, and Texas and the likes are going to get favorable calls. We seem to get a bad rap as a fanbase because unlike the other lesser-named programs, we actually have fans that watch the games and give a ****.

It doesn't even out for us, and it's not going to. That's the world of college sports. Some programs get the calls and all the benefit of the doubt. We're not one of those programs.

Watch a basketball game at Duke or Michigan State. The officiating in those games are ******* ridiculous. Every bit as bad or worse than playing a game at Phog. Just the way it is.

It would be nice to highlight how absurd that rule is if it's even a real rule, and point out how rare it is for non-ISU teams.

I don't get why priority #1 when Texas/OU leaves isn't to completely blow up how our officials are hired/retained for both sports. Don't everybody freak out, I know there aren't "B12 basketall" refs, but the same guys get hired over and over.

I'd rather have just randomly bad officiating (where we also win some games we didn't totally earn) than some of these guys who have been doing games for years that clearly have an agenda. The guys who called our Baylor game should never work in the conference again, there's no way they called that accidentally but exclusively against one team. JP should have as much clout in this as anybody when the two traitors leave.

 

[AuH2O]

In a perfect world, Goldwater would be a ref.

Hell no. Middle school baseball and softball maxed me out. I'd be back judge that's gets trucked all the time because I'm not paying attention.

 

[theshadow]

The roughing call against McLaughlin was horrible. The non-call the next play or two later for pass interference was horrible. They probably don't exactly even out, but both were horrendous.

WR had already lost his footing.