High School Football Cracking Down On Targeting Now, Too

(CBS) The National Federation of State High School Associations' Football Rules Committee has set forth a definition of "targeting" for prep football in an effort to reduce injury risk and contact above the shoulders, it announced Thursday.

Effective in the 2014 high school football season, new Rule 2-43 is as follows: "Targeting is an act of taking aim and initiating contact to an opponent above the shoulders with the helmet, forearm, hand, fist, elbow or shoulders."

Targeting will be penalized as illegal personal contact.

The definition of targeting and its related penalty were two of 10 rules changes approved by the rules committee at its Jan. 24-26 meeting in Indianapolis. All rule changes were subsequently approved by the NFHS Board of Directors.

Bob Colgate, NFHS director of sports and sports medicine and liaison to the Football Rules Committee, said the committee determined – in its continued effort to minimize risk of injury in high school football – that it was important to separate and draw specific attention to this illegal act.

"Taking aim with the helmet, forearm, hand, fist, elbow or shoulders to initiate contact above the shoulders, which goes beyond making a legal tackle, a legal block or playing the ball, will be prohibited," Colgate said.