In a conversation with Joel Klatt of Fox Sports on “Great lunchtime conversations”, Day and Klatt discussed Day’s coaching career, Ohio State and the current college football landscape – a topic that included the head coach’s frustration with some critical rules on the field .
The topic began when Klatt asked Day to name which on-field rule he would change instantly. Day had a response locked and loaded.
“Hash marks,” Day said. “I would go with the NFL model. I think (college football’s) hash marks were created for football a long time ago. I think the NBA has made adjustments, and college basketball made his own by moving the three-point line. They’ve made adjustments, but we didn’t. And I think today, with the type of athletes we have, they are faster, bigger and more powerful. Putting the ball in the hash mark puts everyone in a smaller area of the pitch. We don’t play based on the number of players on the pitch. I think putting the ball in the Midfield – much like in the NFL – would open up the game as a whole.”
Klatt, surprised by Day’s response, responded, “I thought for sure we were about to target there,” referring to the controversial targeting call called off when Georgia safety Javon Bullard launched a strike helmet-to-helmet to Ohio State receiver. Marvin Harrison Jr. in the Peach Bowl, knocking Harrison out of the contest due to a concussion.
“Too soon,” Day said. “Too early.”
Still, Klatt, who believes the targeting rule initially served its purpose but has since become an inconsistent issue, asked Day to share his thoughts on targeting and how he would mitigate the problem in the future.
“It has to be common sense,” Day said. “We’re getting into too much detail on this subject that we’ve lost where we started. And what is the reason we did this? To protect young men. If someone lunges at someone’s head one and he’s unconscious, the ground, that’s not what we want here. Sometimes we go into these things in slow motion, and we get so caught up in the little details. It’s not realistic, sometimes , to look at things in slow motion. I think there must be some commonalities in meaning.
“I think we have to trust the referees on the field and what they see. They’re there for a reason. If it’s blatant in any way, then that’s where the instant replay comes into play. But I think right now we’ve done it, we’ve invested so much in instant replay that what you see in a slow frame is not really what’s happening on the field. And we need to get back to common sense as to why the rules were even put in place.”
In April, the NCAA made three changes to college football: Clocks will run after a first down, except in the last two minutes of each half, teams will no longer be able to call consecutive timeouts and penalties at the end of the first or third quarter will be carried over to the quarter. next time instead of causing a stop without timing. . However, it did not change the targeting rule.
With the 2023 season less than 50 days away, it seems unlikely that will be the case, meaning Day will have to wait until 2024 before any adjustments can change the current arbitration process for targeting.