Miami defensive back Jakobe Thomas escaped a targeting penalty in the first quarter of the national championship game.<\/p>\n
Thomas hit Indiana QB Fernando Mendoza in the chin with the crown of his helmet after Mendoza had handed the ball off on Indiana\u2019s second drive of the game. Mendoza\u2019s lip was bloodied after the collision.<\/p>\n
No penalty was called on the play, much to the chagrin of Indiana coach Curt Cignetti, who immediately clamored for a flag to be thrown. Cignetti had a case. It was a textbook definition of the targeting rule in college football.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThere\u2019s three personal fouls on the quarterback not called in one drive that need to be called because they\u2019re obvious personal fouls,” Cignetti said in his halftime interview with ESPN. “I\u2019m all for letting them play. But when you cross the line, you\u2019ve got to call it. They were black and white calls. \u201c<\/p>\n
Had Thomas been flagged for targeting, Indiana would have gotten an automatic first down and moved half the distance to the goal line. Instead, the Hoosiers ultimately had to settle for a field goal and an early 3-0 lead.<\/p>\n
A targeting penalty would also have meant an automatic ejection, and Miami was already playing the first half without one of their key players in the secondary. Xavier Lucas was ejected in the second half of the Hurricanes\u2019 Fiesta Bowl win over Ole Miss for targeting and had to serve a first-half suspension because of the penalty.<\/p>\n
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Ultimately, it wouldn’t matter. Despite a valiant effort by Miami’s defense, Fernando Mendoza broke through for a late touchdown run and the Hoosiers held on for their first national championship in a 27-21 game after a Carson Beck pass was intercepted late in the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Miami defensive back Jakobe Thomas escaped a targeting penalty in the first quarter of the national championship game.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4654,53637,4899,11450,3156,16206,123,125,124,56787,63040,61764],"class_list":{"0":"post-127397","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-carson-beck","9":"tag-curt-cignetti","10":"tag-espn","11":"tag-fernando-mendoza","12":"tag-indiana","13":"tag-jakobe-thomas","14":"tag-miami","15":"tag-miami-headlines","16":"tag-miami-news","17":"tag-national-championship-game","18":"tag-personal-fouls","19":"tag-targeting"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}