Connor Stalions offers massive targeting rule change amid Arizona State, Texas controversy

Following the latest debate about targeting after yesterday with the hit by Texas DB Michael Taaffe in the Peach Bowl, the infamous Connor Stalions has now chimed in with a possible change of the ruling. Yes, even he has an opinion.

Stalions — the former Michigan staffer, turned famous by the school’s sign-stealing investigation — tweeted out his thoughts online on the flag on Thursday. In his opinion, targeting should have varying levels in order to correctly officiate the rule.

Don’t let this current targeting debate distract you from the fact that we need different levels of targeting! Similar to levels of flagrant fouls in basketball, 2-min minor vs 5-min major in hockey, or even running into vs. roughing the kicker in football.

We can debate all… pic.twitter.com/pWG4koLfVd

— Connor Stalions (@cpstalions) January 1, 2025

“Don’t let this current targeting debate distract you from the fact that we need different levels of targeting! Similar to levels of flagrant fouls in basketball, 2-min minor vs 5-min major in hockey, or even running into vs. roughing the kicker in football,” Stalions wrote on Twitter. “We can debate all day long if that Texas/ASU one was targeting or not. I completely see both sides. At the end of the day, defenders can’t predict where ball carriers put their helmet on bang-bang plays.”

“Bottom line is we need: – 5 yd targeting penalty for incidental contact to the head – 15 yd penalty, no ejection, for leading with crown – 15 yd & ejection for clear intent (launching + lead with crown + contact to head),” tweeted Stalions.

This could be a viable solution if for no other reason than that targeting has become a confusion in it’s officiating for some. Despite the rules being clear on it as far as the launch point and whether a player is defenseless or not, it has been much debated since, including several conversations on it already just on ESPN. Arizona State’s Kenny Dillingham didn’t get it either as the coach who was on the wrong side of it yesterday.

Adding further definition to targeting could make a difference in better determining the call. That’s what Stalions is now suggesting after yesterday’s no-call on Taaffe in Atlanta.

ESPN discusses controversial targeting ruling on Taaffe

ESPN has several big names on their network discussing the targeting ruling on Texas DB Michael Taaffe.

Scott Van Pelt did so first on his edition of SportsCenter on Wednesday night.

“That’s targeting 100 times out of 100. It wasn’t in this case,” Van Pelt said. “I think more than one thing can be true simultaneously. Often is the case. It would have been a bummer for a game to end on a penalty because that’s just as much of a bummer for that to happen. But, if it’s a penalty, it’s a penalty.”

‘Get Up’ then had a lot to say about the targeting call, or lack thereof, this morning.

For Dan Orlovsky, he considered how the officials in the game reviewed and what they were looking for. However, with some explanation by Mike Greenberg, Orlovsky then couldn’t understand how it wasn’t targeting based on those criteria.

“Well, there’s only one of two things that could justify or change the outcome of what we saw,” explained Orlovsky. “One – that the officiating crew deemed that receiver wasn’t defenseless and I think it would be hard to sit there and envision that being the case. Or, two, does the ball getting tipped change if he’s a defenseless player or not?”

“It’s hard for me to sit there and watch that and think that that player is not defenseless because he’s just making the catch and just turning his head and there’s absolute forceable contact to the head or neck area,” Orlovsky said. “This is a miss for this officiating crew. If that is the case, to your point about the ball getting tipped not changing it, there’s no way that you can view that receiver that he’s defending himself.”

Greenberg was then the most bothered of them all by the lack of call. He knows that it was a game-deciding decision considering where the Sun Devils would have had the football. It’s then even worse for him considering they went to review it and still called it as they did.

“It absolutely decides the game because, if that is called? Then it is 1st & 10 Arizona State at the Texas 37 with 1:08 remaining,” Greenberg said. “Does this game wind up in overtime anyway? We’ll never know. But, to me, it is such a shame that a game that was this great where the players just left it all out there…that a call like this winds up playing this significant of a role.”

“This is something that they review in the moment. It’s not a bang-bang decision. It’s a bang-bang play but it’s not a bang-bang decision,” added Greenberg. “They go off, they look at it again, and they make the decision. They have to come to the conclusion that this was not targeting. I, for the life of me, will never understand how they arrived at that.”