USC Football: Trojans kicker ejected on kickoff for targeting (Video)

Things usually get weird in the Pac-12 once the sun goes down which is a main reason why the famous hashtag of #Pac12AfterDark was brought into existence on social media.

I consider myself to be a college football junkie and try to watch as much football as I can (wish I could watch more, but not sure if that is really physically possible). I also am very sure that I have never seen what occurred on the first play of the game tonight between Stanford and USC football.

USC kicker Parker Lewis teed up the ball and booted it to kickoff the game. If somebody were to ask you what happened next your common responses would be that Lewis kicked it into the end zone for a touchback, a Stanford returner took it back for a touchdown, turned it over, or probably the most common response that the Stanford player was tackled by a USC football player at some point.

Kickers are athletes, too, and have made numerous tackles on special teams to help prevent huge kickoff returns and touchdowns as well. But I have never seen a kicker make the tackle on the kickoff and be also ejected for targeting.

I had to rewind the TV just to make sure I heard the referee correctly when he made the announcement after the play was reviewed that Lewis was indeed ejected from the game for targeting.

After the review it seemed to take a few seconds for kicker Lewis to realize that he was actually ejected from the game.

Luckily in college you have more than one kicker on the roster and dressed to kick field goals for USC tonight. I have tried to look around and cannot seem to find another time a kicker was ejected for targeting in college football.

There was a punter a few years ago for Liberty who lowered his helmet back in 2018 to make the tackle and was ejected for targeting, but no kicker before Saturday night in this Pac-12 matchup.

Now if you are ever playing sports trivia in the future and the question is what kicker got ejected on the first play of the game on a kickoff you have no excuse not to get it right by answering Parker Lewis.

Cannot wait to see what other odd things can happen during #Pac12AfterDark the rest of the year. It’s great to have college football back.