Shoulder Pad Tackling Is Targeting?

  • Thread starter Thread starter BE
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I've yet to call a game where a coach has made a mistake. They see every holding call when they're on defense, and their precious little players are incapable of holding on offense. And 90% of the coaches I know are as clueless on the rules as the head cheerleader. That's life.

But to get on here like BE has, and besmirch officials as if they show up to a game utterly clueless is classless, and typical of an over-emotional coach on Friday night.
 
It's a horrible rule and I agree with BE. Glad this happened this week what if this happens in a playoff game it can definitely change out comes.
 
Its clear enough for a blind man to see...a player carrying the ball is not defenseless.

The Calvert kid is an exceptional young man, mannerly, soft spoken, unpretentious. When he realized he was ejected there was no hesitation by him, no disrespectful body language. He asked the ref something and walked calmly off the field and watched the game from the stands with the rest of us. And the rest of us were still standing with our mouths open in shock. I asked him ten minutes after the incident if he felt it was a good hit, he looked us straight in our disbelieving impotent faces and said "no sir, Targeting isn't when a hit is made with a shoulder pad to the chest is it?" He could have lit this receiver up with a bone crushing form tackle, but chose to take it easy on him and merely bounce him down. I would have planted this player six inches into the ground 30 years ago, my son would have blown him to pieces, Dakota Woods, Jared Hicks, Brian Ford, and 500 other kids I have seen in the same situation would have cut this guy in half. But the mismatch this team faced was already realized and the Calvert kids were playing a gear or two below ramming speed and were just putting their opponents down with very mediocre tackles, doing just enough to end the play. If I had been coaching in that situation my feelings would have been hurt because of the lack of energy spent defensively.
But all that changed the play after the Targeting call. If it had been a football contest before the call it became a WWF slam-fest the rest of the first half. There was one exceptional crushing hit just before the first quarter ended that can be described as a traditional form tackle. The rest of them were body slams. I will bet there are imprints of Ram players all over that field today. Someone better turn on the water to destroy the evidence. Hats off to the Allen team, they took it like men.
 
40 years ago I was taught to put my helmet between the numbers on a form tackle. I could also get away with head slapping a center as a nose guard. I realize that's changed. Targeting with a shoulder pad to the helmet is still dangerous. A shoulder to the chest is legal. Football is still a contact sport. Or should all be playing two-below?
 
I would invite BE to cite the rule where it says specifically that, when in doubt, the player is not defenseless.

Debate the rule. I dare you. Not 17 run on sentences about how great your son was.
 
rainjacktx":30gy2l9j said:
I would invite BE to cite the rule where it says specifically that, when in doubt, the player is not defenseless.

Debate the rule. I dare you. Not 17 run on sentences about how great your son was.
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Has he mentioned on this thread or any others how great his son was? He IS debating the rule.
 
"It's clear enough for a blind man to see." I remember a RB jumping into the air as a tacker approached, kicking him in the chest to knock him out of the way to gain more yards. It was not called as a penalty.
Blocking with your foot? Not a stiff arm but a stiff knee?
 
51eleven":xmatjqb2 said:
"It's clear enough for a blind man to see." I remember a RB jumping into the air as a tacker approached, kicking him in the chest to knock him out of the way to gain more yards. It was not called as a penalty.
Blocking with your foot? Not a stiff arm but a stiff knee?
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Good lord. Read the rules. Then show me anywhere in whatever rule book you choose to quote from where a ball carrier can be be a blocker concurrently.

I know you're full of BE love, but at least try to know what the heck you're talking about.
 
And with this post I am done. I will not grace this site again. I would rather actually contribute to the game I love than sit around and bitch about the officiating. I have about 15 more years of payback coming for everything I said to referees in the past, but I just can't be on a board where the sycophantic drones praise and encourage insulting any official anywhere.

So have fun boys - I'm out.
 
Well, for most of us its easy to see why I mention TE. Talking six-man without Tyler Earl is like fighting the dark side without Yoda or eating ice cream without a tongue. (:
Boy, I am hopelessly biased. I know, not very PC. Forgive me RJ.

But so long as these 'tips can type and your pips can see,
so long lives this and this gives life to TE.
............................Shakespeare Modern Translation............................
 
Don't get mad at anything I say, its just my opinion and as such isn't of any real value.
I really enjoy talking six-man football from any angle. Its stimulating. If I offend you, forgive this old fool. Being unemployed provides me with too much time.
 
rainjacktx":19fcjode said:
I've yet to call a game where a coach has made a mistake. They see every holding call when they're on defense, and their precious little players are incapable of holding on offense. And 90% of the coaches I know are as clueless on the rules as the head cheerleader. That's life.

But to get on here like BE has, and besmirch officials as if they show up to a game utterly clueless is classless, and typical of an over-emotional coach on Friday night.
Click to expand...


This has been my point for years. Coaches do make mistakes! And we're held accountable by UIL and our school districts. We have to show up in Austin, and justify our actions, and are typically slammed at these "hearings", no matter who was right or wrong. There are ZERO checks and balances for an official making a mistake - ZERO. All that is said is, "If you don't like it, sign up and be one yourself." I'm not saying officials are bad, but last I checked, they're humans as well, and we are all capable of human error. The point of this thread was, why give the power to eject a player, when they could be wrong??? If everyone would stop getting so offended we might realize this is an issue, but one that could easily be remedied by collaborative efforts, on both sides, to find a happy medium. My personal opinion is that it should be ruled as an unsportsmanlike penalty, and on the second offense, an ejection should happen. This would help eliminate the subjectivity of the rule itself and take the liability away from the official for a single infraction.
 
BEST NEWS IVE HEARD ALL YEAR


rainjacktx":1odoofqa said:
And with this post I am done. I will not grace this site again. I would rather actually contribute to the game I love than sit around and booger about the officiating. I have about 15 more years of payback coming for everything I said to referees in the past, but I just can't be on a board where the sycophantic drones praise and encourage insulting any official anywhere.

So have fun boys - I'm out.
Click to expand...
 
The summer after our Follett player was ejected I ran into two officials at Wal-Mart who wanted to talk about that situation and how the "big school" game officials were handling the new rule. Both said all their buddies were choosing either not to make that call or not ejecting the player, rather issuing him a warning that another such hit would result in his ejection. That was the 2014 summer. Apparently at that time the option to warn, to apply a strike two option was there. That must have changed since then.

CoachSatcher is 100% right. Common sense demands a check and balance to this rule. The rule was designed to prevent an offense from running a play where the defensive player is singled out for a blind-side crackback to the head. The Amarillo chapter called it the Ormesher Rule, referring to our game with RS in the 2012 state championship. It is being applied by inexperienced officials after a shoulder pad hit to the chest whether seen or unseen.. But most new officials may not have any prior knowledge of such a play because it is so rare. Many people think that crackbacks and cutblocking are against the rules and therefore cheating. Designed plays are rare. However, if you play RS and Follett, and a few others, you better have your players aware of them and how to avoid them. Well, correction, cant avoid but can handle them much better than being blind to them. Case in point: Jordan Hicks of RS was a master of crackbacks and because of that he looked for them anytime he was chasing a ballcarrier from behind or from an angle. In the 2001 district game against Panther Creek he saw two Panthers in one play line him up in their sights for cracks. Both players he turned the tactic on the crackers and cracked both of them. One player hit the fire ant infested field like a slab of pork loin, the other popped back a couple of yards and just stared at Jordan as he ran off to continue the chase. No one ever tried to crack Jordan again. I believe the second player was Halffman...not a patzer.

We cut the lead blocker for Calvert in 2002 and 2003 because that dang Ford kid would get multiple blocks when leading on sweeps. It worked okay in 2002, but we still lost 57-60. The next year Ford missed our playoff game so we used it against the other Ford, Brian to good effect and won 42-28.

The Crack play can and has changed the direction of many games. In 2002, 2003, 2008 and 2012 RS used it with game changing results, winning every game we/they used it in except the 2003 semi-final loss to Strawn.

Maybe another idea would be to let the White Hat decide if the hit was Targeting, and/or if the player should be ejected.
I don't know, but it is clearly evident that something needs to be added.
 
A couple guys texted me wanting to know who the heck Errol Ormesher was and where he came from.

Errol showed up on our school door steps in late September of 2012. Before that I figured with the amount of talent we had that we could make a pretty fair playoff run, perhaps as far as the third round if we were lucky. When Errol walked into our office we saw a medium size blond with a deep Colorado-yankee accent asking if he could play some football. He was a senior. After sending off the required paperwork we began to wonder what the holdup was at his previous school...the PAPF hadn't been returned to us. Errol came in and wanting to know if there was a problem began to inform us that his previous coach and he didn't part on good terms because of a situation that led to his being suspended from the team. After opening some lines of communication with the school the PAPF arrived a few days later.

The first practice with Errol padded up we soon realized he was our missing puzzle piece and felt with him we could get to the State Championship game. He was tough, experienced and eager to charge.
After getting to know him we learned that he had been living in his car for a couple of months in Colorado before relocating to Follett to reunite with his mother and sister and work with his dad at Braums Dairy...alias Braums Ice Cream and Foods.

He became our best rusher despite his lack of speed. He had average quickness that seemed twice as fast due to his lack of hesitation. In fact I would say Shelby Smith at RS, 2004-2008 would have beaten him in the 40, and Shelby never broke five flat. Errol was a superb runningback also. He was the toughest kid on our team...old school...despite suffering several minor injuries he refused to back off in practices. A rare commodity these days. Most kids today will point out when they are bleeding or had their bell rung. Not Errol. We had to force him to take a break for a few plays. He was fun to watch and coach. He is the type of kid you would sleep safely with if sharing a fox hole in a jungle battle field and it was his watch. Brother, those type of kids are rare these days.

Preparing for the state game with RS we watched film of their crack plays. Errol was aware of the chances of his being in the crosshairs of several of their crack plays. We assigned a sophomore to alert our rushers of the wideout crackback play, and by Wednesday felt that play and the Center loop around crack play (Sweep Cutback) were well prepared for. What we failed to realize is that crowd noise would prevent Errol from hearing the warning. So he was absolutely leveled by Bryan Salinas. Yet to our amazement when we walked onto the field at Shotwell to see if he was okay, we were relieved to hear him chastising himself for failing to see the play develop. He was very embarrassed. When he saw me he responded with disappointment for coming out to him causing him to miss the next play. Most kids missed several minutes after sustaining the crack. He is a tough young man with a great heart, and we were blessed to get to coach and watch him as a player and person.
 
Side note: If you send your best football player rushing against a team who uses crack-backs, be forewarned---the coach better know how to prepare him/them to recognize how to look for cracks. And teach them to expect to get cracked at some point of their football experience. It will happen if they are players. And when it does try not to overreact to all the fuss, unless you are really unable to get up.

Based on my experience most kids don't stay down because of the pain inflicted, they are stunned yes, embarrassed definitely, but rarely seriously hurt.
Weighing the ways my athletic world got rocked, getting cracked wasn't the source of the most pain to me. Forearms to the throat and getting tackled or blocked below the thighs hurt me mucho more than the occasional crack. Double hammy cramps after running my first mile relay in the seventh grade was life changing for the next half hour. And straddling that pole vault bar in the seventh grade hurt, too. Oh, and those two little punks from Maud and Granbury sent stars through my head when they busted me with low blocks on my Jock. No joke--I really thought I was ruined for life and one of those times I swelled up the size of a tennis ball for two days. Mom wanted to admit me to the emergency room. Dad said crap no that I would be fine eventually. He was right and subsequently stayed five hundred dollars richer. (:
 
Apparently this rule is too technical. Officials should err on the side of caution and give the player a warning, then on a second infraction, an ejection. Proving intent on the first incident leave too much judgement for some officials, and due to the speed of the game, nearly impossible to decide one way or the other. Football is a slobberknocker sport!
 
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