Tuitt’s tackle: It was a Savage hit, but not exactly a savage hit.

1. All-American Ejects

Notre Dame led Pittsburgh 7-0 at Heinz Field last night when, on the first play of the second quarter, the above happened. Stephon Tuitt, who stands nearly six-foot-seven, ran down the line of scrimmage to chase down Panther quarterback Tom Savage. As you can clearly see, both players lower their shoulder pads and helmets into the collision.

Brent Musburger: “A beautiful hit over there by Tuitt! He unloaded on him, Herbie.”

Herbstreit (chuckling): “The big fella. Running out like he’s an outside linebacker.”

Brent: “Hold it–there’s a flag, though.”

Brian Kelly (lip reading): “Bullshit! That’s a bullshit call!”

Brent: “The quarterback taking off becomes a running back, ducks down. Savage did indeed duck his head, but is Tuitt responsible for keeping an eye on him?”

Herbie: “I don’t think (that call) will be held up… This is one that came up in our seminar this summer: What if the ballcarrier lowers his head and initiates the contact?…I’ll ask you this: Do you feel like he was trying to use his helmet as a weapon?… We all know why they’re doing this.”

Question: If that were a running back on that play and not a quarterback, do you think the ref throws that flag? We’ll never know, but I don’t.

If you’ve ever played football, if you understand what it’s like to run full speed, and then lower your body into a hit, you also understand that the weight of the helmet and shoulder pads will make the collision above unavoidable.

The side judge threw his flag. Targeting on Notre Dame. A 15-yard penalty and an automatic ejection for the Fighting Irish’s best player.

Notre Dame made plenty of physical and mental errors (you might want to pick up that fumble, Sheldon Day) in the final three quarters of its 28-21 loss. My friend Brian Hamilton of The Chicago Tribune described the game as a “liturgy of madness.” Tuitt’s ejection is not about why Notre Dame lost. It’s about restoring sanity to college football. Show me a goal line dive play that does not include targeting and I’ll show you a Pac-12 referee with glasses who is competent.

The targeting rule should, um, target players who with aforethought and malicious intent use their helmet as a weapon. There are going to be collisions in football. Sometimes the helmet will be involved and sometimes those two factors, as with the play above, are unavoidable. A Draconian penalty that not only costs a team 15 yards but also results in automatic ejection is asinine.

James Harrison. Now THIS is targeting at Heinz Field.

Late In the third quarter, Pitt defensive back Jason Hendricks led with his helmet in attempting to tackle Notre Dame’s William Fuller after he made a catch. Hendricks missed Fuller and instead struck his own teammate, Trenton Coles, who lay on the ground for a few minutes. It appeared as if Coles was knocked out cold. Eventually, Coles was able to walk to the sidelines, though from the fuzzy look on his face it appeared as if he had suffered a concussion.

But there was no targeting penalty. Is that because Hendricks struck his own teammate, or because the referees had targeting fatigue?

Final two thoughts;

1) Notre Dame got a gift of a non-call last year when officials failed to realize that it had two players with the same uniform number 2, Bennett Jackson and Chris Brown, on its field-goal defense team in ND’s three-overtime win in South Bend. So, between that, the Tuitt ejection and the phantom pass interference on Bennett Jackson, it seems as if they’re even now.

2) Tuitt may have been ejected, but I imagine every NFL scout who saw him run down the line “like an outside linebacker” at 320 pounds  and tackle Savage just moved the defensive end up on his draft board. Silly rules like that are what would motivate a player like Tuitt to leave a year early for the NFL.