Nobody who watches a sporting event ever wants a controversial officiating decision to help influence the outcome of a game. This is especially true in college football when a targeting call comes into play. In the season opener, that may have been the case against Penn State and FOX broadcaster Joel Klatt was not having any of it.
Ellis Brooks was having a fantastic afternoon against the Wisconsin Badgers, and his hard hit on Badgers quarterback Graham Mertz along the sideline was initially deemed clean by the on-0field officiating crew. But Wisconsin took a timeout and the Big Ten video replay took advantage of the extra time to carefully review the call for a potential targeting.
After review, it was determined Brooks was guilty of targeting, triggering a 15-yard penalty on the field and an automatic ejection from the game for Brooks.
Klatt went off on a rant against how targeting is upheld in college football and justifiably so.
Complaints about targeting have been the same for years. It is highly unlikely Brooks was head-hunting in this case but a penalty on the field is fair. But ejecting a player for this hit seems a bit harsh.
The premise supporting an ejection is to steer players away from these types of hits. That is a good idea in philosophy. But it is clearly not perfect, and Klatt let the world know it.
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