DB for Texas A&M football forced to miss first half of Notre Dame game due to targeting penalty from last year

Florida transfer and possible starter for Texas A&M football Jaydon Hill will sit out first half vs. Notre Dame after second-half targeting penalty from 2023

Texas A&M football fans well know that there are few penalties more controversial in college football than targeting. The crackdown on head-to-head contact itself is of course a good thing, but the way it is enforced often chafes against the sensibilities of college football fans.

The penalty itself is enforced in a wide variety of contexts, without much regard for how the contact comes about. For example, incidental and slight contact, or contact initiated by an offensive player, is flagged and penalized in the exact same manner as a full launch by a defender—often to the chagrin of watching fans.

Part of this is how punitive the penalty for targeting is: if you commit the penalty in the first half of a game, you're out for the rest of the game. If you commit the penalty in the second half, however, you will also be forced to sit out the first half of the following game.

This is unfortunately even enforced across seasons and teams, meaning that if you commit a targeting penalty in the second half of the final game of the season and then transfer, you will have to sit out the first half of your first game with the new team. This is the exact situation that has befallen Aggie DB Jaydon Hill, who transferred here from Florida this past offseason.

So yes, for a penalty that was committed over eight months ago on a different team, an Aggie player will miss time in one of the biggest games of the year. That's one of the more... unique situations that I think I've ever heard of in my time watching this sport.