The NCAA has implemented a handful of new rules for the 2019 football season.
The changes are an effort to eliminate targeting, blindside blocks and wedge blocking on kickoffs, and to simply the overtime process.
Targeting is when a player contacts a defenseless opponent above the shoulders. A targeting call includes a 15-yard penalty and the offending player is ejected from the game. He is also suspended for the first half of the next game.
This season, the NCAA has addressed repeat offenders.
If a player receives a third targeting penalty in a season, he will miss the entire next game, not simply the first half.
“I’m in favor of anything that makes the sport safer,” Husson University head coach Nat Clark said.
A blindside block is one delivered on an opponent who cannot see the block and is thus unable to protect himself. In the past, such a block made to the neck or head area was a 15-yard targeting penalty.
This year, all blindside blocks made by “attacking” an opponent with “forcible contact,” no matter where the contact is made, carry a 15-yard penalty.
On kickoff returns, a two-man wedge, where two players align shoulder-to-shoulder to block for the returners, is now illegal and carries a 15-yard penalty. The three-man wedge was outlawed several years ago.
The wedge is not illegal during an onside kick or when such a tactic results in a touchback.
“It’s about player safety and reducing the number of injuries, so I’m all in,” University of Maine head coach Nick Charlton said.
Charlton and Clark said they have spent practice time explaining the rule changes to their players and adapting their schemes to help them avoid those penalties.
Clark has told his blockers that they have to “see the front of the jerseys” of the opponent they are going to block to avoid a blindside penalty.
He has also insisted that two blockers on the same plane spread out or block in different layers to avoid a wedge penalty.
In college football overtime, a team gets the ball at the other team’s 25-yard line and plays until it scores, attempts a field goal or gives up the ball on downs. Then the other team gets the ball at the 25 with the same opportunities.
If a game is tied after two overtimes, beginning with the third overtime, teams attempt a two-point conversion if they score a touchdown. They can’t kick an extra point.
There is no limit on overtime periods.
Beginning this season, if a game goes to a fifth overtime, rather than starting at the 25-yard line, each team will have just one play — a two-point conversion attempt from the 3-yard line.
“They are trying to prevent putting tired players in compromising positions,” Charlton said.
Last season, Texas A & M and Louisiana State University played a seven-overtime game that lasted nearly five hours. That tied the NCAA record for most overtimes.
Texas A&M won 74-72.