Texas A&M’s 2026 football season officially begins on Friday, as third-year head coach Mike Elko will lead his newly structured team onto the practice field over the next month during the spring season, which will end after the Aggies’ Maroon & White spring game on Saturday, April 18. Outside of actual football, the NCAA has reportedly changed a significant rule that will immediately impact teams next fall.
Throughout the last decade-plus or longer, the targeting rule, which can be defined as “a player taking aim at an opponent for purposes of attacking with forcible contact that goes beyond making a legal tackle or a legal block or playing the ball,” has helped decide games due to the now previous rule that players would miss the second half of the folling game if the targeting was called during the second half of the current matchup.
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However, the NCAA reexamined this ruling, likely feeling that a first offense should not result in missing a half or in possible suspension, which has been the case since the 2025 season.
Overall, the game has changed in many ways, mainly to focus on player safety, which should always be the goal. However, in situations where a player intends to make a proper tackle but accidentally leads with his head, a proper warning during the first incident is more than fair.
On Thursday, things became official: starting next season, college football players will be ejected from the game after their second offense and suspended for a third.
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1st offense: able to play fully in the next game
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2nd offense: 1st half suspension
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3rd offense: full game suspension
This is the first step towards more fairness and fewer controversial calls heading into the 2026 college football season.
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This article originally appeared on Aggies Wire: NCAA changes college football’s targeting rule
