College football fans were aghast at Boston College’s Khari Johnson’s unnecessarily violent targeting

Blatantly obvious targeting hits like this need to be condemned.

Targeting has been a key point of contention in college football because of what is perceived to be inconsistency in calling it. It’s almost as if there’s a grey area of nuance sometimes. There is nothing inconsistent or grey about what Boston College’s Khari Johnson did on Thursday night against Pittsburgh.

As Pittsburgh’s Malcolm Epps leaped for a jump ball downfield, Johnson launched himself with a shoulder straight up into the air. Even if his intent was purely to make a play on the ball, there was undoubtedly a better approach to doing so, rather than exploding with a shoulder right into Epps’ helmet. Fortunately, Epps was OK, while Johnson was rightfully ejected for the unnecessary violence. There’s no place in the game for it.

Even watching it on replay for the 17th time, I still can’t believe Johnson made this decision and play. It is legitimately THAT bad.

These are the kinds of sequences college football is trying to eliminate when it institutes targeting. A defensive back like Johnson should be able to do their job without aimlessly launching themselves into the air without any care or hesitation. In this instance, we didn’t see that kind of thought process.