NCAA proposed football rule changes include reviews of second-half targeting calls, players faking injuries

The rule change would allow conferences to appeal targeting fouls that were called in the second half of games in order to avoid the carryover penalty of sitting out the first half of the next game.

The committee proposed a reporting and investigation process to address teams that are awarded an injury timeout when a player fakes an injury. The new rules will begin this season if the playing rules oversight panel approves the rules changes on April 20.

If a team believes a targeting call was incorrect, the conference can submit a request to Steve Shaw, the NCAA's national coordinators of officials. If the player was wrongly assessed a penalty, the call would be overturned and the player would be cleared for the first half of the next game.

Shaw said that if the past year is an indicator, it will only be a handful of calls.

The officials have to either confirm all aspects of the targeting foul or overturn it since there are no stands. Shaw said the sport has an average of one targeting foul per game.

David Shaw, chair of the NCAA Football Rules Committee, said that this is not every head coach who is upset with their guy getting thrown out. It has been our driving force for the last couple of years when it comes to targeting, it is to make sure that we get right, and we have mechanisms to make sure we see all.

Steve Shaw said the rules committee spent more time talking about players faking injuries than any other issue in the game.

The group considered several in-game solutions, including lengthening the amount of time the injured player has to miss, but couldn't come up with one that fit perfectly. The conference office or school would have the final say on the penalties.

There have been severe penalties levied on individual coaches in the past. I would like to see that increased.

The committee proposed a rule that only allowed blocking below the waist by linemen and stationary backs inside the tackle box. Steve Shaw said it was a great change for player safety.

Shaw said that they can see from their injury data that they have reduced knee and lower body injuries when they have made changes and limited blocking below the waist.