Boca Raton Bowl 2017: Refs miss obvious targeting call on FAU (Video)

The Boca Raton Bowl has its fair share of fireworks so far and some of them happen to be due to an illegal hit that wasn’t called.

There’s nothing like a Tuesday night bowl game in the middle of December. Florida Atlantic, also known as the Fighting Lane Kiffins, faced off against the Akron Zips in the 2017 Boca Raton Bowl and everyone was looking to see just how improved the Owls have been under the first-year head coach.

Neither team could find the end zone early on, but the Owls took a lead at the end of the first quarter before adding another score in the second to take a 14-3 lead.

However, before that happened, the Owls were involved a bit of chippy play with the Zips as junior defensive back Andrew Soroh was flagged for a helmet-to-helmet hit against Akron running back Van Edwards Jr.

After the replay, though, it was ruled to be not a targeting call by the officials, a clear bowl call. Just how bad was the hit and missed judgement? Just watch.

The Owls look like the better team through the first two quarters, but this was an egregious hit that was clearly unnecessary and looked to be planned by Soroh with the way he was aiming for the hit after the ball sailed over Edwards Jr.’s head. The running back’s neck got some whiplash and the play was flagged, but no targeting was called.

What this does is raise the question of, “What is targeting?”

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Nowadays, rules seem to have plenty of gray areas and this is another one. It was a hit to the head and neck of a defenseless player and the defender took multiple steps into it. How was this missed? We may never know.