Amid Lamarcus Joyner's 90-minute jaw session with the media at yesterday's ACC kickoff, one topic made him less than jovial: The NCAA's increased penalties for unsafe hits.
For the 2013 season, a call for targeting a defenseless player or leading with the crown of the helmet comes with an automatic ejection. Considering there were 190 of those calls in FBS football last year, it's more than one per team.
"It's up to the officials to know when to call and not to call it," Joyner said. So don't over-exaggerate when someone's trying to hurt somebody or trying to break the rules. You have to know that football is off of game of reaction. You have to truly understand and know when to say somebody is violating the rules."
FSU has plenty of experience with that; namely two years ago when linebacker Nigel Bradham was ejected for an illegal hit against Miami. The ACC later said the call was incorrect.
"Why go through all that sending a guy off in a rivalry game that may be special to him and then come out later and apologize," Joyner said. "That's good on them, yeah, but it's late. The guy is out of the game."
Joyner, a candidate for defensive player of the year in the ACC, has built a reputation for physical play and big hits over the past three years. He said he may have to make some adjustments aspects of things to work around the new rule, but likely wouldn't change his style of play.
"I'm a physical guy," Joyner said. "So there's other ways to be physical within the rules. I'll find another way to be physical and hit somebody hard. ? I just think making nice wrap-ups, making nice form tackles instead of being out of control with it."
But there's ambivalence about how the rule will be applied. Every ejection will be subject to review, and ejections could be overturned based on video evidence. However, the penalty yardage is not subject to review and will be applied regardless of how the ejection holds up.
Rhoads emphasized that the new penalties were a continuation of the NCAA's emphasis on player safety and stressed that the onus remains with the defensive player to avoid lowering their helmet regardless of what the offensive player does.
Joyner, for his part, wondered if the new changes would also change the game negatively.
"(The officials) have to adapt to it too," Joyner said. "Because otherwise it's going to be a lot of flags thrown and it's not going to be football anymore. And you're going to have to go into the locker room at halftime and come out in gym shorts. Because football is a violent sport."
Source: http://floridastate.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1527510
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