Targeting penalties in the top tier of college football reached an all-time high this season and the Pac-12 and Southeastern conferences had the most players flagged, according to an analysis of NCAA data and research by The Associated Press.
It has been 10 years since the crackdown started on forcible hits above the shoulders of players determined to be defenseless. This season, the NCAA reported 188 enforced targeting calls in 832 regular-season games of the Bowl Subdivision; that is 30 percent more than last year, when there were 144 in 839 games. The per-game average has risen 35 percent, from 0.