New football rule designed to prevent sucker hits

We’ve all seen it happen. A football player not directly involved in a play is crushed an opposing player. No reason. Doing it just to intimidate other players, doing it because they can.

A crowd pleaser if your player is the one administering the punishment. A crime otherwise.

Finally, 144 years after the first college football game, an NCAA rules committee has taken note of the egregious activity and wants to put a stop to it. A new rule change, effective during the 2013 season, is as follows:

The Playing Rules Oversight Panel approved a new football rule that requires players who target and contact defenseless players above the shoulders to be ejected, effective for the 2013 season. The change increases the on-field penalty for targeting by adding the automatic ejection to the existing 15-yard penalty.

The new rule reflects the current penalty for players involved in fighting on the field. If the foul occurs in the first half, the guilty player(s) is ejected for the remainder of the game. If it occurs in the second half, the offender is out for the remainder of the game and the first half of the next game.

Some examples cited by the rules include:

• Player in the act of or just after throwing a pass.
• Receiver whose focus is on catching a pass.
• Kicker in the act of or just after kicking a ball.
• Kick returner whose focus is on catching or recovering a kick in the air.
• Player on the ground at the end of a play.
• Player obviously out of the play.

Probably a good rule even if it deprives fans of the thrill of seeing a player from a rival team get knocked silly. One of the undeniable attractions of college football games is the ability to physically punish players on other teams. But if strictly followed, there is likely to be an increase in player ejections. Roughing the quarterback or the kicker is a frequent occurrence during games. A noticeable increase in ejections will be controversial.

Another major negative is that the rule is only going to increase the already burdensome number of official timeouts and video replays that are already plaguing college football. The TV networks will take advantage of the down time to squeeze in still more commercials, adding to the intolerable long waits between the action at times.