Joel Klatt Rips 'Spineless' NCAA Over Penalty Call That Got Michigan Player Ejected

Andy Nesbitt | Sep 3, 2025

Michigan's Jaishawn Barham was ejected from last week's game for his hit on New Mexico's quarterback. / @FoxSports

Michigan linebacker Jaishawn Barham was ejected from last week's win over New Mexico after he was called for targeting when he hit Lobos quarterback Jack Layne in the head while trying to pick up a sack. That penalty will also result in Barham having to sit out the first half of this week's showdown with Oklahoma.

The targeting penalty has long been hated by college football players, coaches, media members and fans. The uproar over it continued this week with Fox Sports' lead analyst Joel Klatt calling the NCAA rules committee "spineless" for not making any changes to it.

"I can’t stand the targeting penalty," Klatt said on his podcast this week. "It’s dumb, it has always been dumb, and the people within college football need to fix it but you know what, they’re spineless. The rules committee is totally spineless when it comes to the targeting call and the reason is because they are afraid of litigation. They don’t want to have the narrative that they’re becoming soft in a physical sport."

Klatt then broke down Barham's hit that led to a penalty and said the linebacker did everything right on the play and shouldn't have been ejected.

"The fact that we don’t two different categories for targeting is a massive fail for college football and the adults in the room have got to fix that," Klatt said. "It’s totally asinine that that play from Jaishawn Barham carries a suspension for the next game the same as a targeting where someone is literally lowering their head, using the crown of their helmet and trying to spear someone and injure them."

Here are Klatt's full comments:

"The rules committee is totally spineless when it comes to the targeting call."@joelklatt reacts to Michigan LB Jaishawn Barham's ejection due to targeting in Saturday's game. pic.twitter.com/O7emZ20NI9

— The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football on FOX Pod (@JoelKlattShow) September 3, 2025

Michigan appealed the ruling in an attempt to get Barham eligible to play the entire game this weekend but that appeal was denied.

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