SEC coordinator of football officials explains new appeal process for targeting penalty

The SEC revealed a major change to one of the most controversial rules in college football, allowing an appeal for targeting disqualifications. The new rule change only applies to players who commit a targeting penalty in the second half of a game, which would result in them being disqualified for the first half of the next game.

With the new rule change, the SEC has the ability to appeal the disqualification for their next game via the national coordinator of football officials. The challenge must come from the conference itself, and the review process will only review the upcoming disqualification — not the targeting call and ejection from the game in question.

SEC adding appeal process to second-half targeting calls

“I want to emphasize — no change to the definition of what is or is not targeting,” explained SEC coordinator of football officials John McDaid. “No change to the judgement we’re using on the field or in the replay booth for what is or is not targeting. The only change is the penalty … if we have a second half targeting, player is disqualified for the remainder of that game [and] has a carryover for the first half of the next game. That carryover part of the penalty is now reviewable post-game.

“The way it works is the review will be done at the national level by Mr. Steve Shaw, national coordinator of football officials. And the conference can decide to appeal to Mr. Shaw to review the play for the purposes of removing only the carryover disqualification for the first half. There’s two key words or phrases in what I’ve shown you here — the first is that if the national coordinator concludes that it is ‘clearly obvious.’ Clearly obvious that there was not targeting on the player [and they] should not have been disqualified. The conference can [then] vacate the first half carryover disqualification for that player.”

Under the previous rules, if a player was penalized for targeting in the first half of a game, they would simply be disqualified for the remainder of the game. However, a second-half targeting penalty resulted in being removed from the current game in addition to missing the first half of the next game in order to fulfill a full game punishment.

The rules regarding what constitutes targeting for officials has not changed with this new rule addition, nor has the targeting penalties themselves. Now, teams will have the ability to appeal a targeting disqualification for a future game if it is “clearly obvious” that the penalty was incorrect.