Following suit of the NFL, the NCAA has proposed a rule change that would allow officials to eject a player from a game for an intentional hit to the head.
According to the Associated Press, the NCAA proposal moved forward on Wednesday and is one of the most high profile and notable moves college football has made to address player safety. The talk of concussions and head injuries has been a prevailing topic for the past few years and it was a main talking point at the Super Bowl.
The NCAA can't fine players like in the NFL, so instead the rule proposed include that a video replay will be used to determine the ejection part of the penalty, but that call will be made immediately.
New Temple coach Matt Rhule, a former Giants coach, said the new rules are good in principle, but it might be too much on the officials to decide whether a play was intentional or not.
"That seems a high price to pay for something that we're not sure of," Rhule said in a telephone interview Wednesday night.
The committee voted to approve penalties for above-the-shoulder hits, with a 15-yard penalty coming along with an ejection, if it is approved by the Playing Rules Oversight Panel next month.
"Clearly if the guy's head is down and he's launching into a receiver with the top of his head, that should be a penalty," Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez said. "You hate for somebody to get penalized for just a good hard hit."
Player safety is a top priority for the NCAA and the organization wanted to establish some parameters for players taking hits to the head.
"It's a real problem in the sport," Chairman and Air Force coach Troy Calhoun said, "and we need to eliminate it."
Calhoun said that last season there 99 targeting penalties called in Division I and that under the new rule those would be ejections. Many of the hits were ones that caused concussion or other type of injury.
"It's not a gigantic number," Calhoun said of the 99. "Ultimately, our goal is zero. Is that realistic? I don't know if zero is. But I know any time you involve an ejection, we're going to see that number go down drastically immediately."
The ejections would cover a full game, meaning that if it was the first half, the player would be out for the rest of the game. If it occurs in the second half, they will miss the rest of that game and the first half of the next contest.
