Confirmed: #Hokies LB Sean Huelskamp will have to sit 1st half against Pittsburgh because of questionable targeting ejection in 2nd half Sat— Mike Barber (@RTD_MikeBarber) September 27, 2015
True freshman Carson Lydon likely gets his opportunity and first start against the Panthers on Saturday.
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Absolute, complete, and utter fucking bullshit.
I was listening on the radio sounded like booshe
Screenshots can obviously be cherry-picked, but I've honestly watched this play about 20 times and tried to grab the exact moment of impact as best I could. I still don't see it.
If you really want to get upset, go watch the replay that got Huelskamp ejected them go watch the hit that knocked Cincy's QB out of the game against Memphis and wasn't called anything.
Indeed. I lamented that exact fact on Twitter. The call on Kiel, ultimately, I think was right, but it was sure as hell of a lot closer to being targeting than what Huelskamp did. If you had impartial observers look at those calls without having seen the game or without having known what the calls were and asked (knowing that one was called) which one was the foul, I bet you the Kiel hit is the choice 99 times out of 100.
A major, major difference between Huelskamp and Kiel is that Huelskamp wrapped up the QB in a tackle, and the hit on Kiel was in no way wrapping up - the guy just tried to hit him.
By and large, I think wrapping a guy up a is a safe way to avoid a targeting call. Just trying to hit the guy always seems excessive to me.
Even Amhad Brooks would of said no targeting
Wasn't AMo supposed to be back Pitt week?
Probably the worst call of the day, even worse than Clark's PI. It looked like Sean had good form on the tackle and should have never been a penalty, which came on a 3rd down stop (I think). Just BS! Hope Lydon plays well and best of luck to him. Both kids have lots of potential.
Was it just me or did it seem like a whole lot of those questionable calls (or no calls on a certain pick play) came on third downs that resulted in a stop?
Every ref is going to make bad calls. Where is the accountability though. This call, this consequence, no recourse = 1 large cow pile.
The ref in question should be kicked in the junk by Bud Foster during halftime of the next game. I would call everything square then.
Bad call.
The problem is that there isn't evidence to overturn it.
The fact that it held up in replay is evidence of that apparently. However, IMO the call must be arbitrary to each official. Because if Huelskamp's hit is a targeting penalty and ejection, then there should be ejections basically every game based on that call if it is supposed to be consistent across the board.
The commentator's even said if there is a question on a targeting call, the referee's are told to uphold the ejection if for no other reason than to enforce how serious it is.
What I don't get is, football is a dangerous sport which we all know, but why does this penalty receive far less concern for officiating accuracy than any other reviewed play. If you review a play, it is generally understood that you intend to make the call accurate by taking a closer look at it. But apparently for targeting, the review has nothing to do with it. You're still getting ejected...
Bad call.
Optimistically, Lydon gets a chance. My feeling from the little I saw from him on Saturday is that he will never relinquish the starting role.
I saw a mix. He was definitely out of position and got swallowed by blockers a couple times. However he did have an excellent play in run support where he absolutely exploded through the gap like a mike should
This is total crap. Yesterday's game featured a ridiculously terrible officiating crew who consistently blew calls (not blaming the refs for a loss here). They made a bogus "targeting" call that did not get overturned but definitely should have. Now a kid will miss considerable time during the next game.
The bigger pile of crap? No appeal process.
I say this without any hint of sarcasm. We should get fucking lawyers involved in this and get out of this series no matter the cost. Whit needs to see that ECU and the AAC also-ran officiating crews are now negatively impacting our conference play.
I'm gonna try out for the NCAA this spring and request the AAC. They typically start guys at DII or DIII, but after yesterday, I'm pretty confident I'd be better than what they're fielding now.
Give 'em the business.
Business will be given.
I wish Ron Cherry had worked the game instead yesterday, and that tells you all you need to know about the officiating.
The only answer to any of this is to pound ECU by 70 every year for the next decade. I'm talking 'hook and lateral' up by 63 with a minute to go in the 4th.
Or, yanno, just beating them at all
Ditto! And how about we take it out on Pitt this week as well and maybe everybody for the rest of the season!
GO HOKIES!!!
I'm sad for Huelskamp. I'm pissed at the refs don't get me wrong, but ultimately this sucks for a kid who was just making a play. If that's an illegal hit, what do you expect him to do?
Also, how was the QB defenseless? Are scrambling QB's defenseless?
Not the first time they penalized a legal hit. The horse collar tackle that the announcer said was "textbook" wasn't a foul at all. The runner has to go sideways or backwards and he clearly went nowhere but forward after the defender grabbed under the shoulder pads. That was pretty indicative of the level of officiating we were seeing yesterday.
Oh yeah, forgot about the "horse collar".
I am ashamed to wear stripes after that game.
Not to mention the level of announcing.
I thought the same thing at full speed, but on replay you can see that the QB had begun a feet-first slide before Hustle hit him. The correct play would have been to pull up and not touch the QB once he went feet-first. It's a lot to ask of a kid running full speed with adrenaline pumping. It's also not in any way, shape, or form "targeting." But if they had let the unnecessary roughness stand while waving off the targeting ejection, I wouldn't have complained.
I disagree about pulling up and not hitting the QB. In college the ball is spotted where the QB actually goes down, not where he starts his slide. So a defender has a vested interest in hitting the QB to stop his forward motion, because that can save anywhere from 1-3 yards.
No, it's not the NFL. In college, when your knee goes down, you are down.
As I mentioned below, he started to slide after the LB started his move to make the tackle. There's no way for the LB to have seen the QB start to slide.
So, Tracy Jones was the official in this game. Let me point out his claim to fame, from 2011:
http://www.hustlebelt.com/2011/9/25/2448926/toledo-syracuse-extra-point-...
I see he hasn't had his vision fixed since then
The biggest issue I have with Refs is thier presumed infallibility. If when they blow a call they should later just admit it. It would at least provide some measure of credibility.
That said Jones and everyone on that jackass crew needs to be called out for the rest of their hopefully short careers. Swofford should have to spend the rest of next week attempting to defend them. Should any of them ever set foot in Lane stadium the crowd should start singing 3 blind mice during their introducion and they need to have "I blew that call" chiseled on thier tombstones.
Here's the thing -- I can't figure out if he's an ACC or AAC ref. I've seen different reports here. There was an ACC graphic up on the screen the first time they showed the ref, but ESPN's graphics guys haven't been on top of their game this season. Traditionally, the home team conference provides the refs.
But, it doesn't matter which conference he's with. Conference refs need to go away, and there needs to be some governing body that can have some oversight.
Then again, we have that in the NFL, but when does a ref ever give an apology for sucking other than "sorry, bro."
The mighty Google says that as of 2014, he was definitely an AAC ref. So I'm betting he's still there...
(Thank all that is good and holy for that, I never want to see this fucker again.)
The thing I don't get is that they put in replay to help correct some of these calls, but then they didn't even use the replay for the fumble, and when they did use the replay, replay seemed to make the incorrect call - the targeting in particular, but there was another one that escapes me at the moment.. but just the fact the guy that missed the extra point going wide on review somehow still has a job shows that there is next to zero accountability with refs in regard to their job performance
The more football I watch the more I wonder if instant replay is a good idea. It seems like the replay guys are at least as likely to miss the call as the guys on the field. And it's a lot easier to forgive the call on the field.
It was always a terrible idea, IMO. We're really no closer to getting the calls right than before.
While I hate replay, one way to improve it is to have two (or better yet, three) isolated replay judges independently vote on the call -- requiring unanimous decision to overturn the call. And they only have a set amount of time to review the call. Once that time has passed, voting is shut off and the call on the field stands.
There are way too many delays in games already (particularly the college game) that serve as free timeouts -- and if you can't get unanimity to overturn the call in, say, 60 seconds, then the call was almost certainly too close to overturn anyway.
You may miss a few calls that upon intense review of every nuance of every angle in super slo-mo might get overturned. But how many would there really be? And wasn't the original point to simply get the egregiously missed calls correct?
I pitched the multiple, isolated replay officials when talking about the game with my parents last week (might have even posted it here, too). Absolutely agree. If a call is indisputable, then multiple officials will agree.
I LIKE instant replay.
I just think that in the case of an ejection for targeting, the review should require POSITIVE confirmation of contact.
I get that they want to protect the players, but this wasn't close to "targeting" in my opinion, and there was no way to adequately review the call.
Definitely agree. I think replay has done more good than bad, across sports. It's arrogant and a bit ridiculous to not make use of available technology, so the move towards video review is a welcome one. The targeting rule needs to be re-written, because as codified, "if questionable, it is a foul." So in the basis of the rule, "shrug, looked kinda bad" is by definition targeting, even though this defies logic to me and is absolutely inconsistent with the requirement for indisputable proof for all over reviewable calls.
Holy fuck. How is this guy still officiating at any level? I wouldn't even want to subject peewee ball to this amount of terribad.
This is rich...Tracy Jones (and Ron Cherry) are both clinicians at Tom Beard's Football Officials Clinic...so not only are they awful, but they are teaching other refs how to be just as awful. This guy is really a poor reflection on the clinic.
whaaa???
When a QB starts playing like an RB, they should be treated like an RB. What was Sean supposed to do, when on every other play, Summers was showing no intention of sliding and hiving himself up? I hate the targeting rule. Compare that hit to zumealt's (or however his name is spelled) hit on LT3. There is no consistency at all. At the very least there should be an appeals process.
Especially after the QB starts to slide after the LB drops down to make the hit.
My thoughts exactly! The targeting call was ludicrous. It shouldn't have even been a personal foul.
I'm sorry but officials seem ejection happy. Its been awful this year, ive seen 4 that were completely undeserved two against wisconsin during the troy game (both complete BULLSHIT) THIS, and then last night hawaii had a player ejected which was also bullshit. They need to take a breather on how quickly they eject players and put in a better appeals process because frankly some refs are just way to afraid of any kind of contact. Sorry welcome to football people hit each other. Sometimes with their shoulders, it happens
College football used to be the best thing on TV, it has slowly gotten worse over the years. After yesterday, I have no want to watch another college football game.
If you want to see a blown targeting call, here's one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w611j4vXtpk
you want bad calls...
http://www.sportingnews.com/video/79162 (cant embed that one)
Targeting has gotten a tad absurd
Listening to that announcer blew my mind even more than the call. "He launches" though he drives through with his feet never leaving the ground while making initial contact to his chest... "He leads with the head", only waterboy makes tackles leading with his feet, a forward lean just about ensures a helmet will hit something... and this one kills me "The quarterbacks helmet comes off meaning he must have made helmet to helmet contact". No that actually doesn't mean that. THIS IS FOOTBALL. I am all for protecting players but my god I just can't keep it together with half the calls I see these days. Apologies for horrible formatting and paraphrased quotes.
What's a little helmet-to-facemark among friends?
Personal opinion, but targeting should be a "confirmed" or "overruled" kind of call. There should be no way that there should be the ability to say "the call stands" when officials are told to call it even if they think it might be. If there is not conclusive evidence that it was in fact targeting, a player should not be ejected. I get that they want to err on the side of caution, but ejecting a player is one thing you have to be sure that you're making the proper call on. You can't go back and review a play and issue a targeting penalty, so you should have to have no doubt that it was in fact targeting to get away with ejecting someone. I wish that would be part of the rule. I love that they review them, but that means there's no excuse for getting it wrong.
The biggest problem is the way the rule is worded.
"When in doubt, it is a foul."
No. If you're going to remove a player from the field, it needs to be decisive. I get airing on the side of caution and player safety, but the ejection of a player inexorably alters the path of the game (and potentially the next one), so you'd better be damn sure that player really did something wrong.
Agreed. If you aren't absolutely sure that it's targeting, remove the ejection, call a personal foul and I'll be less pissed off. But eject a player when you aren't 100% sure he did anything wrong and you've really messed up.
Yeah, if Huelskamp had been called for unnecessary roughness, I probably would have rolled my eyes but accepted it, given that the QB was going to the ground. Would have been a borderline call but par for the course for those officials. The fact that it was just instantly called targeting, to me, suggested a complete lack of understanding or implementation of the rule.
That's the thing though, it WASN'T instantly called targeting. The flag wasn't thrown until after the players were starting to get up from the ground and the ECU players started complaining to the official. That was a VERY late flag if he thought it was actually targeting.
Right, shouldn't have used the word "instantly." What I mean is that the ref can call unnecessary roughness + targeting, or just targeting. He called the latter. The flag was late, but the call only invoked targeting, which is clearly BS in my eyes.
Agreed. I tried to look at it as impartially as possible, but I could not see from any video where I would call it targeting, and clearly neither did the replay officials. Unfortunately, there was also no evidence to indicate that it wasn't targeting due to the camera angles. Which brings me back to my point that it should be a "confirm" or "overrule" call. If you don't know for targeting only, it should not be an ejection. The call on the field to eject a player should never stand if it isn't certainly deserved, and with the help of video review, you have the ability to be certain.
And if it is reviewable...leave "when in doubt" on the field, not in the video room. Like the playoff committee rankings are supposed to be each week - a brand new look.
Targeting, as Hokie_x3_Hi pointed out is to be called if they "think it might be."
Here's my problems with targeting:
1. There is absolutely no consistency with the call.
2. If reviewed, confirm or it should be guilty until proven innocent.
3. If targeting is called and reversed, penalty should not be enforced. I understand "you can't review a penalty."
But how can you review the call and say "there was no targeting" and then enforce a 15 yard penalty after you just said their wasn't one?
I believe the 3rd point was addressed within the last year or two. Basically now, if the penalty is just targeting, they will pick up the flag if it is determined it isn't targeting. If the penalty is something else, like a late hit or unnecessary roughness AND targeting, then the flag will stay.
First, if the call is reversed, the penalty is not enforced. That was one changed they made this year that should have been in the original rule.
I like that they have, "if in doubt, it is a foul" written there for the benefit of the officials on the field. The gray area for them needs to be as small as possible, so word the rule in a way that gets the flag on the ground so we can talk about it and then review it. However, that's where that phrase needs to end - the second it goes to replay. The call cannot be allowed to "stand." If you're going to eject a player and award a 15 yard penalty, that review cannot take the same "indisputable evidence to overturn" approach as normal replays. While the intentions of the rule are good, and generally the results have been positive, the penalty is quite often too stiff for players who don't operate in slow motion or who have to take aim at a target that is sliding around on wet grass.
Thanks for clarifying. I've been so frustrated with that aspect of the rule since it began and must have missed the much needed change. I'm all for protecting the players, but like you mentioned, when you're playing at full speed it's hard to let up.
But like I said, I've had a problem with the way it has been called since it has been introduced. Too many times a "good tackle" has been penalized, and unfortunately ejecting a player.
Again, I'm OK with the intial call. One of my mentors on the high school level has repeatedly said, "hey, if you're in doubt, get a flag on the field so we can take a minute and talk about it." That's one of the best parts of football officiating - calls don't have to be made in real time, even more so in this case on the college level. So I'm not at all upset with how the initial calls are being made. My big issue is that once we've had a chance to talk about it, legal hits are still being penalized because the review booth doesn't think there's enough evidence to overturn the call. That's where the distinction needs to be made. Not, "will you overturn this call?" but, "is this targeting?" The way it is right now for replay is incredibly flawed.
Agreed x 1000
All this being said, Lydon didn't play too horribly that I could tell so hopefully not too much of a drop off against Pitt. Then again, I was already blinded by all the yellow that was being thrown out there, so I could've missed a few things.
I recall a play shortly after he came in that he overran his gap responsibility putting himself out of the play, leading to a run up the middle for a decent gain. But that's not to say that he played terribly. He made some good plays as well in his limited time.
IIRC, the very next play after the targeting and Lydon's first play, he over pursued on the QB keeper and missed what should have been a tackle for minimal yards. Overall I thought his play was decent and he had a few good plays but you can't fault a true freshman who was 3rd string starting the year in their first game, especially at the Mike position in Buds system.
In fairness, although it seemed Sean's second half wasn't bad, I saw two or three plays in the first half where he overshot his assignment and wasn't quick enough to get back to where he should've been to make the play. I'm hoping French enlightens us, but my point is that I don't think Sean had a very good first half either.
I've got a grand idea for the call why not make it like basketball where you have unnecessary roughness calls but that doesnt necessarily warrant ejection. Only if they do something really bad do you eject em. BOOM problem solved. You could even make it so that two unnecessary roughness calls result in an ejection, as long as they're still reviewed. this has been silly though. EVERY game ive watched ive seen someone get ejected or nearly ejected and i just dont think thats right
Sorry for bringing up an old thread, but did anyone ever have a gif or video of the hit? A buddy wants to see it but I couldn't find it at all. Only in the full game replay.
Here you go: https://imgur.com/P7UzW7t Someone please find the contact to the head or neck area.
WOW...obviously I missed the game as well...HORRIBLE call!!
It's obvious from that shot that he even went in looking at him. The only part of his helmet that contacted the QB was his facemask and the primary area of the hit was below the shoulder.
Yes, thank you Rocco. StateCollegeOnATreadmill thanks you
i found it duuhhh.. its when his head hits the ground which obviously is huelskamp's fault because he should have placed a pillow there so he lands ever so softly.
Hooray! A solution!
The fact that this play called for an ejection and that Jordan Zumwalt's CLEAR targeting hit on LT3 in the bowl game wasn't is ridiculous. Even Deon Newsome getting ejected vs UVA last year was questionable, especially compared to Zumwalt's hit. What exactly is targeting? I'm all for making football a safer sport, but this whole rule and the "softening" of the game really bugs me. When you choose to play football, particularly at the college and NFL level, you should expect long term health effects and problems in the future with your health. That's the choice you make when you play the game of football. It's a mans game. This whole deal is an atrocity.