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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYSJuly 23, 2013Walt AndersonDALLAS, TEXAS THE MODERATOR: I'd like to introduce Walt Anderson, the coordinator of officials in the Big 12. Walt, it's all your show. WALT ANDERSON: Thank you, Peter. What I want to do today is to go over some of the general rules changes for the 2013 season. Most of those are available to you in various formats. I'm not going to spend a lot of time with a number of the ones that are probably going to not have as much play. I want to save most of my comments for the targeting rule, which has certainly during the off‑season, the spring, and the summer, generated the most questions from members of the media, probably as well as the public, and they've certainly generated a lot of interesting questions from our coaching staffs. Just to give you a couple of highlights on some of the other rules changes that may come into play at various times during the game and for you to be aware of. The first relative to the helmets. Last year we implemented the rule in terms of the helmet came off that the player had to go out of the game for one play. That does exist again this year. The difference is that the coach can buy the player back in with a time‑out, provided he has a time‑out. So toward the end of the game‑‑ and the concern with coaches was that, toward the end of the game, just through normal play, as an example, his quarterback comes out and there's 35 seconds left in the game, he had to go out for a play. They didn't feel that that was fair. So the rules committee did make the change on that. He does have to have a time‑out, though. If he's out of time‑outs, the player will have to go out, provided the helmet did not come off as a result of a foul. The other part of the rule change that the helmet rule will come into play, but it also involves an injury, is the NCAA has adopted what is pretty much the same rule now as the NFL, and there are a lot of similarities relative to the NFL and NCAA rules that through the years, particularly recently over the last ten years, are coming much closer together. But when there's an injury inside of a minute and the clock is running and the only reason the official stopped the clock is to administer the injury, then that team will be subject to a ten‑second runoff. We actually added this last year relative to a false start. So the same provisions are going to apply. The helmet rule is really administered like an injury situation, so that could also apply. So you could have a situation where inside of a minute, the clock is running, either a player's helmet comes off or a player is injured, the officials just stopped play simply to deal with the injury or the helmet, then the team is going to be subject to a ten‑second runoff. Same provisions apply. The offended team can certainly decline the ten seconds. They're not forced to run it off. And the team whose helmet either comes off or who has an injury, if he's got a time‑out, he can buy back the ten seconds, but if he's out of time‑outs and the offended team wants to run ten seconds, there would be no option. So you do have a scenario that, should you end a play and there's nine seconds on the game clock, it was running and would not have otherwise stopped and there's an injury or a player's helmet comes off and that team is out of time‑outs, in essence, you're going to end the game by rule. So you do have that situation. And at any time as I'm going through these, if you've got a question about that, feel free to raise your hand, and I'll try to answer those as we go along through these. I know you'll have some when we get to targeting. Another rule change that you want to be just alert to is the two‑second rule. What that means is if there's two or less seconds on the clock and we just stopped the clock to administer, as an example, a first down, but then the referee is going to blow his whistle and would normally wind the clock, if we're at two seconds on the clock and the clock is going to be wound by the referee after things are set, by rule the team is going to get one play. There is no longer the option of them trying to spike it real quick and try to leave one second on the clock. And if the clock operator, if he ends up stopping it at one second and there was two, the referee will simply make an announcement that by rule the game is over. So the coaches have been made aware of this. There's two seconds, and the referee's going to wind it, then you've got one play. So make it a good one. The situation there really resulted from a play a couple of years ago in a bowl game where the clock was running and there was some spiking, players were coming onto the field, and there was a question about whether or not they really had a legitimate opportunity to have time to spike the ball. So the rules committee did make that change. Blocking below the waist rule has changed. That's a rule that over the years has had lots of changes. The rules committee has made an attempt‑‑ it was a complicated rule. It was hard for officials to understand. It was even harder for coaches and players to understand. It dealt with what we call geography. It had reference to sidelines and back toward a line drawn through the ball for 120 yards on the field, and it was really difficult. As a general rule, what the rules committee has said now on low blocks is that, just with a couple of exceptions, if the block is from the front and the player can see it coming, it's legal. If it's from the side or behind, obviously, that's a clip. But if it's from the side, it's illegal. The couple of exceptions are we've got a low block zone, which is kind of like the tackle box, and if players like linemen or backs are inside that zone and the ball is still inside that zone, then they can block low from the front and the side. If the player is outside that zone, he can only block low from the front. The two exceptions is you still can't crack back. You've got those wide receivers at the snap. They can't immediately come back into the inside and block low, even if it's from the front. And the other thing to remember is, once the ball gets outside the zone, everybody on the offensive team is on the same restriction, which is you've got to block from the front. And the only exception, which is the second of the two, is what we call a peel‑back block, which is blocking back. If I'm heading in this direction, it's blocking back toward my own goal line. So if you get those loops where the offensive lineman or a receiver is coming back against the running back who's heading this way, defensive players are chasing him, and here comes a wide receiver and he's coming back toward his own end line, if I block low, even if it's from the front, that's a foul. It's called a peel‑back block. So the blocking below the waist rule has really been made, I feel, a lot simpler to officiate. The coaches feel like it's a lot easier to understand and to be able to coach. Because, in essence, with the ball within that zone, the linemen and backs can kind of do what they've been able to do before, which is make cut blocks. But once the ball gets wide, they're pretty much telling the players block from the front and don't peel back. I mean, that's pretty much the two phrases they're using is just block from the front. If you can't block him from the front, don't block him low at all. The other major rule change, which is what I'm going to really‑‑ I'm going to show some video because I think it's a lot easier for us to go through the targeting rule relative to looking at some video. But just to preface the video, what we have found through study, and this is really‑‑ the NFL has placed a big, heavy emphasis on head hits. The NCAA is placing a heavy emphasis and have now for really the past five years specifically, relative to the targeting rule, because of the incidence of concussions, the additional research and studies and knowledge that's now being gained relative to concussions, the cumulative effect of hits on players. And what we're really needing to do is change certain types of behavior out on the football field to the extent possible with a contact sport, avoid unnecessary hits to the head. The game is certainly, from the standpoint of focus and attention, is somewhat under attack now. As you will see with some plays, probably rightfully so. It's those types of unnecessary hits to the head that are clearly avoidable that really create the biggest problem. One of the things that's important that we spent a lot of time here in the off‑season trying to do is to be sure that everybody's on the same page relative to the understanding of the definition of targeting and what is and what is not targeting because. While on the one hand, a lot of these unnecessary hits, we have all got to work collectively, the stakeholders within the game, to remove from the game‑‑ football is a contact sport. And there are going to be contacts to the helmet that are going to be a natural and normal part of football, and the difference is that we need to be sure we all understand and are on the same page relative to what's legal and allowed and what's illegal, should be called, should be hopefully changed and, to the extent possible, eliminated. So I'm going to spend some time talking about that. So if we could, let's just put up the video. I'm going to get over here so I can point some things out to you. We spent a lot of time with officials through the years teaching them how to officiate the game. The game just gets faster every year and will continue to do so. But one of the tricks that we have learned‑‑ and really the NFL modeled a lot of this‑‑ is they took various categories that now are just second nature to us and really don't end up garnishing near as much attention by members of the media relative to judgments that are made on the field, and that's all been by intent. One of the things that's been done over the years, without getting in too much detail, what we try to teach officials to do are to see things, have a mental process, and to be able to compartmentalize events relative to key phrases or key words to determine does this action that I just saw and I recalled, does it elevate itself to a foul, or is it something that's not to a foul and therefore I'm not going to call. It's what we call categories. We do this with holding. We do this with pass interference. There are things like arm bars and grab and restricts, cutoffs. Those types of language we teach officials, and they're key phrases. And when they see this stuff out on the football field and it happens just like that, you don't have time to say, Time‑out, let me get my rule book out, let me read through a couple of paragraphs to see if this is a foul. They've got to make an instantaneous decision. The NFL has done a very good job through the years, and we have brought a lot of that technology, if you will, and teaching techniques to college, and it's really helped. And we're going to do the same thing with targeting. There are four types of plays that are probably going to encompass about 98 percent of the targeting actions you're going to see on the field, and that's what we're going to focus on with officials. Hits on receivers, roughing the passer, hits to the guy holding the football, could be the quarterback or may be a runner, and he's going to be in an upright or sliding position. And in the fourth, which is a new category this year of defensive player, is a blind‑side block. A lot of times people ask: What's a blind side block? Simply put, it's a block that the guy doesn't see coming. So those four are the types of plays we're going to focus on. What is targeting? What is not? One of the things we've worked through in the off‑season‑‑ and we've really been working on this the last two years‑‑ is developing key components of high‑risk actions by players that usually lead to targeting and low‑risk actions that lead to‑‑ that lead to actions that really are not targeting and should not be called. This is what we want to share with you. The high‑risk actions, these are the things that officials are taught when they're out on the football field. They're looking for these four things. When they see these four things, it doesn't mean that targeting is automatically going to be called, but these are high‑risk indicators for players. This is what coaches are telling players. You do these things, it may not be a foul, and even if it is, it might not be called, but you have to understand that you're putting yourself at a high‑risk of it being called. With the consequence this year of the penalty phase of the targeting‑‑ the two targeting rules being disqualification, the consequences are far greater. They are launch, thrust, strike, and crown of the helmet. What do those mean? We've got a two‑page handout for you that is available‑‑ will be available in your media workroom that really describes these in a little more detail. I'm going to go through some of the verbiage, but feel free to pick that up. I think it's good information for you to have, particularly with the four high‑risk and the four low‑risk indicators. What's a launch? A launch is when a player leaves his feet, and he goes in an upward direction to attack. Again, a lot of this is semantics, and we realize that, but it's a key to understand that targeting is an act where there's an inherent element of intent on the part of the player, to strike, or we use the term attack, go for, target the head and neck area. So this is a launch. This is what we're trying to get players to avoid. You see No. 2. Right now he has a choice to make in terms of how he's going to hit this player. Unfortunately, in this situation, he launches upward, he's leaving his feet, going to the head and neck area. These are the type of acts that are unnecessary. They're clearly avoidable, and they are the type of actions that can lead to injuries that we're trying to get out of the game. The next one is a thrust. What's the difference between a thrust and a launch? Basically, it's the fact that he doesn't leave his feet, but he still thrust upward. So rather than running through the quarterback, he thrust up toward the head and neck area. Where he's coming in, in this example, the quarterback. Rather than getting his head to the side or trying to wrap him up‑‑ and we'll go through some of the low‑risk indicators in just a few minutes‑‑ he's attacking upward, creating this helmet contact that we want to work at trying to avoid. You see No. 42 right here, in terms of the quarterback's already thrown the ball, so he's coming up, and he's thrusting upward. The next one is a strike. The key component of a strike is it really doesn't matter what you hit the head with, you're just striking the head and neck area. It's often the shoulder, could be the forearm, but if it's with intent and it's in a manner that's attacking the head and neck area, then it is targeting, and it's going to be called. Those first three components of the high‑risk deal with hits on a defenseless player. The fourth deals with the crown of the helmet. And that's a player intentionally lowering his head and using the top of his helmet to punish an opponent. That can apply regardless of really where you hit the player. Here you see an example where you're going to see the defensive player, the receiver's coming in, the receiver goes up. And this is what we want to get players to avoid, where they lower the helmet, lower the head, and they strike with the crown of the helmet. This is just as dangerous to the player that's delivering the hit, compressing the head and neck area, compressing the spine, that could end up leading to serious injury to the player who's delivering the blow. You have the action where the player is coming in, and, again, he lowers the head, strikes the‑‑ in this case, he strikes the quarterback here in the head, but this would be a foul if he lowers it and strikes him in the chest. So you don't have to have helmet contact for it to be targeting if the crown of the helmet is used. So on the flip side, what are the things we're looking for relative to actions on the field that indicate to us that more than likely targeting did not occur. These are the four things that we see that, if players do, it doesn't mean that they may not be guilty of targeting, because you can combine an action such as wrapping up with the fact that you're launching and going at his head, and it could still be targeting, but as a general rule, when players do these types of things, they have much less tendency to target and are going to be at a much lower risk of it being called. Head up, wrap up, head to the side, and position change. So what do those mean? Here you're going to see a big hit on the receiver, but the difference is what you see‑‑ and this is what coaches want to try to get their players to do, rather than the crown of the helmet example I just showed you, the player's head is up, and his target zone is low. So when we're going around talking with coaches, or particularly players, and coaches ask, Well, what can we tell our guys to do? Lower your target zone. Keep your head up. The next category is wrap up. And typically‑‑ and this deals with all positions. When players have a tendency‑‑ and I know everybody has their own theory about whether this is old style or not and maybe an attempt to bring back some of this, but typically, when players are wrapping up, they won't have near as much tendency to be launching and targeting the head and neck area, so that's what we're trying to do. It's certainly not a new technique to wrap up when you tackle. That's been taught in football for quite a few years, but I think there are some coaches feel like, yeah, we maybe have gotten away from that, and I know some of the coaches yesterday had mentioned that in some of the questions they answered, and probably some will mention that today, is that we might need to get back to being sure players are aware of some better techniques relative to this action. So wrapping up. Here you're going to see‑‑ now, here's a launch, but what you see the defender doing, he's trying to get his head to the side, he's moving it to the side, he's wrapping the player up. It's impractical to expect the defensive player, when a receiver goes airborne, to say, well, I've got to just plant myself here on the ground and wait for Sir Isaac Newton to take effect so that he comes back to me. He's going to go get the player, but there's a legal way to go get him, and there's an illegal way to go get him. You may launch up to him, but don't launch up toward his lead and neck area. Wrap him up, get to the side, and make a good legal hit. The third category is head to the side. What you're going to see here is defender's coming in and puts his head to the side. Doesn't launch up toward the head and neck area. Big hit. And you're going to have big hits in football, and there's nothing wrong with that, and we need to be celebrating big hits. But what we don't want to celebrate and we've got to get out of is this culture of the targeting actions where really we're celebrating an illegal act in a potentially very dangerous act. So head to the side. Again, what you're going to see here, big hit. I think it served its purpose. It dislodged the football from the player, but he did so in a legal manner. So right here, 24, coming into this play he's got a choice to make: Do I launch and go high? Do I take my shoulder, bury it into his head with forearm? Or do I make another choice, which he does here. So it's a good example. He starts getting his head to the side, turns into him with the shoulder, and he lowers his target zone, works at keeping away from the head and neck area. Little swing pass. You've got the receiver who is out. He's going to come in and block this guy right here. Again, this is what we want to see players do. So this is what would be the potential for the, described earlier, peel back. This player is coming back towards his own goal line. If he blocks low here, even if it were from the front, that would be an illegal low block because it's a peel back. What he's got to do, he can't block low, can't block high. He does a good job, turns his head to the side, lowers the strike zone, hits the player right in the chest and shoulder area, perfectly legal hit. And then the fourth is a position change. This is because of the fact that players are moving in the game. It's a game of motion. Players are going to change their position. This is where you get into trying to read what's the intent of the player who's delivering the hit?  Is he intending to attack the head and neck area, or is he just trying to make a good legal hit but subsequent action through the normal course of play may end up resulting in this helmet‑to‑helmet contact. This is why‑‑ and I know many of you use this phrase, helmet‑to‑helmet contact. There's a lot of helmet‑to‑helmet contact in a football game. As a matter of fact, most of the helmet‑to‑helmet contact in a football game, the vast majority of that is perfectly legal. It's not a foul, shouldn't be called. It's the intentional helmet‑to‑helmet contacts or other body parts to the helmet that we're working to try to eliminate. And that's why it's important for us, for you to have an understanding that phrases and words do mean things. They mean things to players and coaches. They mean things to officials. They mean things to the public, and I think it's important for us to try to be on the same page relative to what is targeting and what is not targeting. What you're going to see here, this defender‑‑ I'm sorry. Right here. See, the receiver is coming in just like the legal play we saw before. He's going to make a choice, what I want to do. He's doing exactly what we want him to do. You'll hear me talk a little bit about down and out. We want them to get their head down, out of the way, lower their target zone. He's attempting to do that. Unfortunately, the fact that the receiver is coming to the ground‑‑ and what you'll see a lot of time, particularly with receivers, they'll get the ball, they'll see the hit coming, and they're going to assume a position. They'll crouch and lower their body to try to protect themselves from a hit. It's not the intent of this player to deliver what we consider a targeting act. He's just turning the head to the side, but you may occasionally end up with some helmet‑to‑helmet contact. That's why it's really not fair to take a still shot, show and say, oh, two helmets touched, therefore we should have a foul, because that's just not true. It's not true by rule, it's really not true by intent. There are plenty of other actions, what we call waterboy moments. They're high‑quality targeting hits that we need to work on getting out of the game. But there are a lot of hits that are just going to be incidental. That it would be unfair to disqualify a player for an act that's really not a foul. And this would be an example. This is what we're working to get not only officials to try to recognize but we're working to try to get players to play in this manner. We want you to put your head to the side, turn your shoulder into the player, and lower your strike zone, and if you do those things, there are going to be times when, just through the normal course of play, there may be some incidental contact. We want to be sure we're differentiating that type of action from the intentional act of targeting a player high. So, here, you've got a catch. 23 is the defender. He's coming in. He's seeking this guy out. What am I going to do to him? 86 has got the ball. He sees the guy coming. What am I going to do? This is what you'll often see. As the defender starts turning his head to the side about the same time as the receiver, he's ducking. He's trying to protect himself, and you're going to end up with incidental contact. This is not targeting. This is the type of act that, when we see on the field‑‑ and these happen real fast‑‑ we want officials‑‑ and it may not necessarily be the official that ends up making the call, and I'm going to show you some examples in a little bit of actions that‑‑ where officials‑‑ we had a flag and the officials get together and say, I understand what you saw from your angle, but I had a really good look at it. Player's turning to the side, hit him in the chest, it's not targeting, let's pick that up. Let's get into the four types of plays. I want to show you some quick examples. Any questions so far? You guys are great students, and ladies, thank you. I'm going to show you a couple of plays. Plays in each category that are hits that are illegal and fouls should be called, and a couple of examples that are not a foul, actions that we would not want to make. Here you've got an example again, you've got a position change‑‑ also, just for you to know, this signal now is universal for targeting. We want the referees to give that signal because one of the aspects of the rule is instant replay. If you have a game where instant replay is used, can get involved, and looking to remove an obviously incorrect call if there was no contact to the head. But sometimes there may not be voice communication, say, in the replay booth or they lose the speaker, and so they can't hear if the referee calls plain old vanilla roughing the passer or he calls roughing the passer targeting. So we want the referee to give this signal. Replay here is either the word targeting, or if they see this signal, it cues them this is a reviewable play. So just for you to be aware of that. So here's the player coming down. This is what we want players to get in the habit of, lowering that head, getting that head out of the way. You've got a receiver coming out. And right now, the defender has the responsibility to avoid high contact. He has to be aware that, okay, I didn't get to the ball soon enough to intercept it or to knock it away. The receiver's got the ball. I'm going to hit him. I have now got to make the decision, how can I hit him legally, or how might I hit him illegally that I want to work at avoiding? This is what he's got to avoid, where he comes in and he's just too high. He may be attempting to have his head up, which is certainly a low‑risk indicator, but if you have your head up and you're still too high and you strike with intent in the head area, you're going to be guilty of targeting, as this is and needs to be called. This example here, where the player passes, receiver's caught, and he's going to hit him. He takes the forearm right in the head. This is a striking category. That's where we would put that. Q. Quick question. Those last two examples that you've shown where they come in and‑‑ go back to this one right here. Go back to that one right there. This one right here, Walt. What are you hearing back from the coaches on this one right here? Because we're talking sea change of technique now. That is exactly how it's been coached. Bam. Head up‑‑ you hear what I'm saying, though, Walt. What are the coaches telling you that they're going to have to do to change technique? Because head up right through the chest. WALT ANDERSON: Your technique with head up, wrapping up, but you're going to have to get lower. Q. So the coaches told you in response to this‑‑ I'm just trying to figure out what the coaches are saying back to you because it's going to be a tough one because‑‑ WALT ANDERSON: It is. Q. Unless I'm wrong, having done this is a couple of times, that's what you're talking. Head up, right there, wrap him. Am I missing something here? I just want to know what the coaches are going to tell their kids now in terms of changing that technique. WALT ANDERSON: You've got to lower your strike zone. That's probably the best phrase I can use. You've got to get lower, and you've got to recognize that, even though you may exhibit some of the low‑risk indicators in your actions, if your target zone is high, you're going to be suspect of it getting called. Q. How much lower has he got to get right there? WALT ANDERSON: About three to four inches. And you're right. It's a fine line, and it's going to be‑‑ Q. Just back up. When he's in a position, a little bit‑‑ one more frame, Walt. When he sees‑‑ stop. Right there. You're saying three or four more inches. WALT ANDERSON: The other thing‑‑ and, again, I'm just telling you how it is. Q. I got you. WALT ANDERSON: Because the game is under attack, and we will either work at changing this culture from within, or it will be worked at being changed from without, and I don't think anybody within the game will argue that we would much rather change it from within than have it changed for us from without by other people. Is it going to be difficult? Yes. But this is also why we're spending a lot of time with officials recognizing the types of things‑‑ and I'm going to show you some plays, and this is why we're also getting replay involved. Remember a while ago I showed you the Kansas State‑Oklahoma play where the player was just like this, head was up, he's hitting the receiver? What was the difference? About that far. And that's the difference. But, again, the head is attached somewhere. The neck starts right above the shoulders, and that's your line. So the closer‑‑ and this is what we tell‑‑ we've had this meeting with players along with the coaches, and we will tell the players the higher you get, the more at risk you are, even if incorrectly from a technical standpoint, the more at risk you are of having this called. So it's like they play on the edge. Their job is to play the game on the edge. In football, if you're not playing on the edge, probably you're losing. That's just the reality of the competitiveness, especially in the Big 12. I mean, it's a very competitive conference. So you've got to play on the edge. But you also have to understand, particularly relative to this targeting aspect of the game, which I think is unique relative to other areas, that you've got to understand that the higher you get, the more at risk you are of it being called. So if you're going to err on the side of what do I do, maybe you need to be thinking, get just a little bit lower. We've got plenty of plays. I'm going to go through some of these, if time allows, and show you there are plenty of plays just like this, where, yeah, they did get that much lower. So it's not targeting from that standpoint. Q. Walt, I'm for all these rules and safety and everything, but these receivers are ducking all the time. There's one in the middle where you said he obviously launched at him, but he just went to go for the low target, and as they're catching it, they're ducking their head down. I don't know if the second official is going to come in and look. But I saw it in the NFL all the time where there's a lot of calls where the defender had a low target zone, did everything right, and the receivers just duck. WALT ANDERSON: Let me show you this play. People are going to think we cued you up for this question right at this time, but we did not do that. I'm going to let this play run. This is a play last year‑‑ our officials work every week. If they're not working in the Big 12, in years past, they'd normally be off three or four weeks. We don't allow them off. We work them somewhere every week. So this was a game. This was Mike Defee's crew was working at Nevada. I'm just going to let this run, and this is how we want this to play out on the field, and it happened a lot last year where officials got together. What happened‑‑ and I'll set it up for you. The side judge, which is the official down here, deep down here, he's going to call No. 26 for targeting. This was called last year. Last year would not have been a disqualification, but this year potentially it would. This is exactly what we're working to get officials to do. We've got a call now. The flags come in. TV will pop it up there in a minute. There's a flag. And so what you're going to see, he's coming in, telling the referee, I got targeting, but the line judge is coming in. You can see him ducking his head, and he's telling the receiver, the side judge, I had a good look at that. Player's head was to the side, he hit him with his shoulder, let's pick that flag up, and that's exactly how the conversation went. Referee just simply turns, there is no foul on the play, first down, and we're moving on. And we have numerous examples of these types of actions. This is what‑‑ because from an officiating standpoint, we are under a lot more pressure now, but that's okay because we've been working for many years to get officials used to mentally processing plays and questioning each other. Just like the culture of the game has to change relative to how players have to act, we've been working at changing the culture in officiating for quite a number of years now because, frankly, the old culture in officiating was you never question the guy's call. Well, he must have seen something I didn't see. I guess we'll talk about that on Wednesday. It just doesn't play anymore. So our officials are very used to questioning each other. When you see those conferences that are occurring out on the field, and you sometimes might be overly critical, what in the world is taking those guys so long, we're trying to get the thing right. That's what we're really trying to do. You may see a few more conferences this year. I hope you do because we're telling our officials that more of you have got to get involved when you see elements that are potentially targeting. The reality is these events don't just happen spontaneously. This is not spontaneous combustion out there on the field. All action on the football field is fluid. Movement can be anticipated, and you can see these types of hits potentially coming, and that's what we want officials to get used to. When they see that‑‑ we call them fish swimming upstream or a guy carrying a brick. The officials have all kinds of metaphors that they use. When they see actions developing, we want them to be focused. That's why we had them get a little more stationary rather than being on the move because they'll see better with their eyes. This is a perfect example right here where, yeah, it's close. It's close to targeting. But it was correctly picked up, and we would hopefully this year that the same thing would happen. Ideally, we wouldn't have a flag in the first place. But if we do have a flag, we're telling the officials do not hesitate to come in, voice your opinion, say, hey, I had a better look at that. There are going to be several of those that I'll be able to show you as we go through. Again, and this type of action that happens on the field. Get to the better one. Right here, you got this guy going for the ball, this guy going for the ball. They're both playing the ball and, bam, their heads hit. So you've got helmet‑to‑helmet contact. This is not a foul. This is just football. Yes, it's unfortunate, players sometimes get injured. As a matter of fact, on this play, they both got hurt. They were both down, both out. It's going to happen. Q. If it's called targeting on the field, is it automatically reviewed upstairs? WALT ANDERSON: Every play is reviewed in college. So the replay officials, they look at every play. If we call targeting, they'll begin looking at it. They won't necessarily stop it if they can confirm that it was, in fact, targeting. But if they can't confirm that it was targeting, they don't have a shot, then very often we will have them stop the play because what we're looking for is sometimes you'll have one angle that is just inconclusive, and we're looking for an angle where we can try to confirm it. You may look at every replay that TV has and you just can't tell, and just like we do with other categories that are reviewed, the ruling may stand, and if you hear the word "stands," it just means there's not evidence to say that the call was right or wrong, but it's standing. Q. And is there an appeal process? Can coaches appeal after the game and maybe something's overturned before the next game? WALT ANDERSON: Not in D‑I. I'm sorry. Not in FBS that has replay. If you have replay, whatever replay ends up doing with the play, it's final. So the conferences don't have the ability after the fact, even if it's incorrect, to change. Q. Do you know how many targeting penalties would have been called in the Big 12 last year if you reviewed all the film? WALT ANDERSON: I know exactly how many were called. We called 17. And of those 17, we would have reversed five of them. So five of them were called on the basis of philosophy because officials are told, when in question, because of the emphasis, they call those. That's what we wanted them to do last year. That's what we want them to do this year. The difference is we're charging our officials‑‑ we're going to elevate our game. We're not going to have as much question about plays. That's what we're telling the officials, is the consequences are too high because it's a balancing act for us. We've got to get these illegal acts out of the game, but at the same time, nobody wants to disqualify a player unfairly for doing something that's really an illegal act. So we looked at that play. Let me get real quick into the next category, which is roughing the passer. Let me just go through this play. Here's a good example. Let me get to the TV part of this. And I think I'll take this play and just tell you a little bit of how the review process will work. So here's a play last year, and we called this targeting with 24. Based upon the rule and what we were charged with by the rules committee‑‑ which is made up of all coaches and athletic directors. There aren't any officials that vote on the rules. They consult with us, but we don't make them. We just enforce them. The intent of the rules committee getting this stuff out of the game is when you think it's a foul, it is. The good thing about a play like this is it will give you the idea, now, why did the official call this? Here's the play we would have in replay. Again, in getting back to the low‑risk indicators, the defensive player here is doing what we want them to do. He's working, he's turning his head to the side. He's attempting not to go high, and he's trying to hit, which he does. He actually hits the player in the shoulder. Now here's the view‑‑ here's the unique‑‑ and this is the guy that calls it. So you're in his hip pocket, and you're going to see now what he sees. So from his angle, what's it look like to him? See, it looks like targeting. He's got one view just like that. And this is where‑‑ this is why this has got to be a group effort here. We've all got to work at not only players and coaches doing their job, but officials and replay doing their job. This is why, when you end up with a play‑‑ let's say you've called targeting, and this is how this will go.  Field judge will come in and tell the referee, I've got targeting. Referee is going to turn around, personal foul, unnecessary roughness, No. 24, defense, targeting. By rule, No. 24 is disqualified. He's going to turn his mic off, and at that time he's going to go over‑‑ in this case, he'll go over to Charlie, and he'll say, Coach Weis, No. 24 is disqualified for targeting. And there will probably be some conversation that occurs relative to that. As that's happening, replay is upstairs looking at their shots. If they don't end up getting a shot, if this is the only shot that they see, they're thinking, well, that's targeting. But we're not just going to say, okay, well, I can't make a change on that. They may end up‑‑ they stop play. So they've told‑‑ they're looking at things. They may call the TV truck and say, What other shots have you got? That's when TV says, We've got a good isolation on the sideline. Let me look at that. That's it. That's what we're going to look at. Hopefully, that's how the process will go. You'll get a shot like this, and the replay official can say, Yeah, head's to the side. Hit shoulder to shoulder, we don't have high contact. So now the referee's got his headset on, he's going to say in this case, Hey, Mike, we don't have targeting. What you're going to do is you're going to announce the disqualification of 24 for the foul, there is no disqualification. Mike takes his headset off. He turns his mic on. He's going to say‑‑ and, again, because the foul is not going away even though it was incorrect, but the DQ is going to be removed. So the referee will say, After further review, No. 24 is not disqualified for the foul. And he's going to turn his mic off, and then he's going to go over and tell Coach Weis, because he may not have heard the announcement, that the player is not disqualified. If they see that, in fact, there was a targeting action or there's not sufficient video, then he's either going to say that the call was confirmed or if it will stand. Q. Why does the penalty stand, Walt? I mean, the coaches can't agree with that. If you just reviewed it and said, okay, it's a bad angle, the side judge over here got it incorrect, why does the foul still stand? WALT ANDERSON: Well, this was the big tradeoff relative to this rule because, when the rule first got proposed in January, it was just going to be a DQ, end of story, and we were actually one of the conferences that lobbied, say, look, that gives us no recourse on something that is incorrect. We understand what we're trying to do, on the one hand, with eliminating it, but on the other hand, that's a mighty severe penalty to really put on the burden of officials, because what's going to happen if we don't do that is officials are going to stop calling it. Then it's going to continue to occur. We won't get it out of the game. And that's what we're trying to do, is to get this stuff out of the game. So the great compromise, if you will, was that, okay, if you got replay, rules committee says we'll allow you to use replay to remove the DQ, but we're not going to get into picking up flags because, although we're very accurate relative to percentages on our accuracy‑‑ I mean, we were at 97.3 last year on our accuracy on the calls‑‑ we're not going to go in and look at the other 2.7 percent because that's the other side of that. So there's a limitation as to what‑‑ and I think appropriately so‑‑ what the rules committee wants to allow replay to get with, because, if you think about what did we do last year, we erred on the side of calling it even when in question. And we called 17 of them, I told you, and five of them were really technically not fouls, but they were correct by philosophy, and that's what we have relative to this rule is a philosophy that the rules committee and the NCAA wants officials to apply. So even last year when we were technically incorrect, the foul did stay down. So the same thing is going to happen relative to the foul, but we at least have the opportunity to remove the DQ from that. Again, great question, and that's how it evolved. Q. Just points of order. Is the NCAA going to track the expulsions week by week? Do you know? WALT ANDERSON: They probably will because, as part of our recording of the game report relative to the fouls, we actually now‑‑ under targeting, there's not only an area that we have to mark in terms of what category‑‑ launch, thrust, strike, or crown‑‑ where we'll indicate that. If the DQ stays, that will be the next column. That actually automatically gets tracked. So they have that data typically by 10:00 a.m. on Sunday morning. I'm sure the rules committee will be tracking this as they have with targeting before. And part of the reason that the rules committee made the decision to put the DQ in was, as often as it was being called, it wasn't being called as consistently in some conferences as it was in others. They felt like they needed to have more teeth, if you will, since my background is dentistry, more teeth into the rule relative to the targeting action to try to place additional emphasis on getting it out of the game. Q. I think I just heard you say there's going to be a separate official in the replay booth tracking this. In other words, a replay official is not going to make the call. Is that right? On expulsions. WALT ANDERSON: No. The instant replay, the replay official assigned to the game that's reviewing every play for touchdown, incomplete pass, he'll be the same official that will look at targeting. Q. Okay. And then the question I wanted to ask‑‑ WALT ANDERSON: I wish it could be me in the booth on every game, but I can't physically be in that many spots. Q. Dusty Rose of the ACC and Mike Pereira here I think told a reporter that, in their opinion, Jadeveon Clowney would have been ejected for the hit on Vincent Smith. I wonder what your opinion was on that. WALT ANDERSON: I don't know the particular hit. Q. In the bowl game where his helmet came flying off. WALT ANDERSON: I think I remember a little bit of that play. Is that the one where we didn't give him the first down in the bowl? I watched a lot of bowl games. I saw a lot of hits. I don't remember the details of that specific hit. I can't make a comment on that. Number one, I don't think either of our teams were in it. So I wasn't watching that close. And we weren't officiating in it. So I know I wasn't watching that close. We're done. I'll catch you after. I'm sorry. I've gotten not only a two‑minute warning, they've ended the game on me, so to speak. Again, I will be around. I'm not going anywhere. If you've got some additional questions. I'll be glad to talk with you throughout the meeting, during the course of the day. I encourage you to pick up that handout. It gives you a very thorough description of the four high‑risk and four low‑risk indicators we're going to be using, in essence, to try to bring a little more objectivity to the decisions the officials will make and to try to give the officials some tools in which to help players in terms of doing things legally. So thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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