The NCAA’s recent spate of college football rules changes have ranged from mundane (a proposal to force leg coverings failed), controversial to downright spooky (“ghost transfers").Perhaps of most noteworthy this fall is a one-year trial run with changes to the sport’s targeting penalties.Passed March 19 by the NCAA’s Division I Football Bowls Subdivision Oversight Committee, an initial targeting penalty in the coming 2026 season does not require a player to miss time in his team’s subsequent game.The previous iteration of the targeting rule required a player who was ejected for the foul in the second half of a contest to miss the first half of his team’s following game; it even could carry over from one season to the next year.However, NCAA officials and representatives from member schools studied changes to the game from previous modifications to the rule and learned no player during the 2025 season was flagged for three targeting penalties.Overall, the NCAA said, the penalty also has declined in frequency“I believe the discussion had been for a while the severity of this penalty, and we think the rule has demonstrated (the game) has really responded,” Greg Burks, Big 12’s Coordinator of Officials, told USA TODAY Sports. “The number of targeting penalties has gone down.

The plays we saw, the head-hunting we saw in the past, you just don’t see anymore.“The safety factor was driving the rule and was the impetus and that kind of has come to fruition.”The NCAA’s national coordinator of officials, longtime SEC referee and officiating head Steve Shaw, shared with the group the results of the study that showed “only a very few” players received multiple targeting penalties during the 2025 season.The Big 12, Burks noted, did not have a single player whistled twice for the foul.If the trend-line reverses direction with these rules modifications and more players become multi-time offenders, mandatory suspension remains in the rulebook. A player would be required to sit out the first half of the team’s next game, regardless of when the penalty occurred.“Part of this rule is if we do have a second occurrence, the original penalty comes into effect,” Burks said.

“A third requires sitting out a full game.“The most severe penalty in sports is not being able to participate.”As the Big 12 seeks to further enhance its football officiating, the league is drilling down on its first-of-its-kind partnership with the NFL. The NFL for the first time invited Big 12 reps to sit in on the NFL’s competition and rules meetings during the annual NFL Combine held earlier this year in Indianapolis.“They have put a lot of resources into their officiating program, how they make their rules is really important,” Big 12 Chief Football and Competition Office Scott Draper told USA TODAY Sports.

“That’s something I’m focused on for college football.“They spend a lot of time vetting rules changes so that when they get to the final stage, they’ve already gone through a lot of the necessary conversations. That’s one aspect that globally for college football I want us to learn from.”With the NFL partnership, an ideal scenario for the conference, according to Draper, would be to elevate officials’ performances to a level it might be difficult to retain them.“The accountability, training, recruitment measures, collectively working together with the NFL in the Big 12 to really address, not just Big 12 officiating staff,” said Draper, a former Michigan director of football operations and athletic administrator. “But recruiting younger and replacement officials going forward, the goal is to build a pipeline for young officials to get into college officiating and maybe be a pipeline to the NFL.“This is a long-term process, something we’re viewing for more than one year.”This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: College football again changes targeting rule: How punishment changes