The National Football Foundation announcedsome alterations to existing rules in college football and introduced a brand new one earlier this week.
The penalty associated with targeting will become more lenient, for starters. Players called for targeting penalties in the second half of a game used to be required to miss the first half of the following game, but that discipline will no longer be in effect. This is being deemed an experimental rule change for the 2026 season.
However, repercussions for players who rack up targeting penalties will continue to be in force. A player who receives their second targeting penalty over the course of a season will be forced to miss the first half of the following game, and a player with three targeting penalties in a season will be required
to miss the entire subsequent game.
Offensive pass interference penalties will be reduced from a 15-yard penalty to a 10-yard infraction.
The National Football Foundation is also introducing a fair-catch kick rule, which would allow a team to attempt a field goal after a fair catch from where the returner caught the ball. The NFL also has this rulein place, but it is seldomly used in practice.
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This article originally appeared on College Sports Wire: Targeting and offensive PI altered ahead of college football season
