In the third quarter of Saturday's game against Bowling Green, on a modest Ohio punt return by Kylan Nelson, defensive end Austin Conrad retreated to his team’s 35-yard line to stick a block.
Conrad charged, lowered his helmet and blew through Bowling Green long snapper James Carolan. The officials called Conrad for targeting, a 15-yard penalty that sentenced him to an ejection and a disqualification from the first half of next weekend’s game.
For Ohio, the call was nothing new.
The Bobcats have been hit with four targeting calls in the past three games. Three of those penalties were called on defensive linemen, adding strain to a position group already taxed by fall camp injuries and the departure of four key 2016 graduates.
“I know our guys are not trying to intentionally target,” coach Frank Solich said after the Bobcats’ 48-30 win over the Falcons. “They’re moving targets. We’re trying to make plays and we’re trying to make tackles. But we’ve got a rash of (targeting penalties). What can we do about that? I don’t know.”
Two weeks ago, defensive lineman Cleon Aloese and cornerback Ilyaas Motley were called for targeting against UMass. Last weekend, it was defensive lineman Kevin Robbins against Central Michigan.
Aloese appeared to use his forearm to strike a UMass player in the head, though the Bobcats could argue that Aloese had been pushed forward by a pile of players.
In Robbins’ case, the Central Michigan quarterback ran into open field and, on his way to the ground, twisted toward the lunging Robbins, who then initiated helmet-to-helmet contact.
“I’m not opposed to protecting players,” defensive line coach Pete Germano said Monday after practice. “But I’ve coached D-line for 10, 12 years now, and I’ve never had a guy get ejected. All of a sudden, we’ve had two.”
Now they’ve had three.
Conrad’s penalty came on a special teams play, but the impact was the same: Ohio will play down one defensive lineman for the first half of next week’s home game against Kent State.
“It strains your defensive line,” Germano said. “It changes the complex of how you rotate who’s in and who’s out.”
Ohio’s defensive line rotation is already a facelift version of last year, without 2016 graduates Tarell Basham, Casey Sayles, Kurt Laseak and Tom Strobel. All four of them played in every game last season and accounted for nearly half the team’s sack total.
The Bobcats are without redshirt freshman Amir Miller (torn ACL in fall camp) and redshirt sophomore Sam McKnight (undisclosed knee injury). After serving his first half disqualification Saturday, Robbins sat out the second half with a back injury.
Both Solich and Germano emphasized they didn’t believe their players had any malicious intent. Players make sudden, unpredictable movements. Everyone plays the game at full speed, and some hits are unavoidable.
But the rapid accumulation of four targeting calls — meaning four personal fouls, four ejections and four half-game disqualifications — is clearly an issue.
“Enough’s enough,” Germano said. “We can’t afford to do that.”
