Just one game remains in the college football season, and Miami football is getting ready to do battle with top-seeded Indiana in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game.
Both squads were very impressive in their semifinals, as Indiana blew out Oregon 56-22 in the Peach Bowl and Miami showed plenty of grit and resilience in a 31-27 win over Ole Miss in the Fiesta Bowl. However, the Hurricanes suffered a key loss during their semifinal win, as starting defensive back Xavier Lucas was ejected for targeting in the second half of the semifinal and will be suspended for the first half of the national title game as a result.
Losing Lucas, a starter in the back end for Mario Cristobal and company, is a big deal for Miami coming into a game against an Indiana team that excels at attacking your weaknesses on defense, no matter where on the field they are. Coming into the title game, Cristobal called for a change in the targeting rule after the season, via Brett McMurphy of On3 Sports.
“We feel it was unjustly administrated & now it impacts the last game of the season,” Cristobal said after highlighting that he wants the rule suspending players for the first half of the next game for targeting to be changed.
There was some controversy surrounding the call when it was made during the Miami-Ole Miss game, as many fans didn’t think that Lucas should’ve been flagged in the first place.
The logical solution to this issue is to introduce tiered targeting calls, similar to how basketball calls flagrant fouls, where there is a version of the penalty without an ejection and there’s another version with one. Judging intent, especially in a sport that moves so fast, is a bit of a slippery slope, but it’s better than ejecting players for hits like the one Lucas made in the semifinal.
Unfortunately for Cristobal, there is no changing the rule before this game against Indiana, so defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman and company will have to find some solutions without one of their top players for 30 minutes against what has been the best team in the nation all season.
