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College Football Rules Likely To Change Next Week - Feb 09, 2007
posted by: Josh
NCAA Associate Director of Playing Rules Administration Ty Halpin sheds some insight on the upcoming NCAA Football Rules Committee meeting in Albuquerque. Football coaches, players and fans interested in the NCAA Football Rules Committee’s deliberations, which will be held February 11-14 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, are likely most interested in what the committee will do with its clock rules. Will the committee revert to 2005 rules? Will the committee keep the current rules, which took about 16 minutes off of games in the Football Bowl Subdivision? Will it be something in between? One change – starting the clock when the ball is kicked off – is a likely candidate to revert to 2005 rules. If the committee decides to alter this rule, it would alleviate a few unintended consequences. One issue with this rule was underscored in the Penn State-Wisconsin game when the Badgers ran offside intentionally to burn some time before the end of the first half. (Note on that situation: The officials were going to flag Wisconsin for unsportsmanlike conduct the second time the team ran offside, but a Penn State holding penalty negated that opportunity. By rule, offsetting fouls require a re-kick.) In the other areas of the clock rules, the decision is more complex. The committee must balance the wishes of conference offices, which are trying to balance issues with their teams, television partners, school administrators and coaches. The committee has to balance the wishes of all divisions – remember, the Football Rules Committee sets the rules for all of the NCAA’s divisions, not just the Football Bowl Subdivision. Most importantly, however, the committee must do what is best for the game. The changes that clearly affected Division I institutions also affected Divisions II and III. At the Division II level, the number of plays was down from 68.4 per game in 2005 to 61.9 in 2006 – 6.5 plays a game (13 combined per team). Division III schools saw total plays drop from 69.5 in 2005 to 63.3 in 2006 – 6.2 plays a game (12.4 combined per team). Coaches at this level have asked the committee to consider how the new rules have affected their division. Division III in particular – which emphasizes participation of all student-athletes on the team – has seen a negative aspect to the rules. Additionally, most Division II and III games are not on live television. The shorter game times made some fans and teams feel shortchanged. As with any change, there are bumps along the way. The rules committee did not just unilaterally make these changes a year ago – it was the culmination of several years of discussion and the result of requests from member conferences and institutions. The committee has revamped its communication structure to help ensure what some coaches felt was a lack of communication with the clock rule change. Unfortunately, the change last year that received the most attention was relating to video replay – the addition of a coach’s challenge to the process. This year, with the help of the Collegiate Commissioners Association, the committee will have direct communication and a comment period prior to the final approval of the rules changes. Overall, the rules committee’s main charge is to ensure the safety of the student-athlete, competitive equity in the game and do what is best for the game as a whole. How the committee’s philosophy develops on the image of the game as a whole will guide it with regard to the clock rules. Stay tuned. 
CommentsAs an avid college football fan, I sincerely hope that the Rules Committee does return to the 2005 clock rules. I am a huge football fan, both college and professional, but one of the things that separated college football for me was the end of the game rules that made last-minute game winning drives more likely. The college game has a number of built-in mechanisms to aid last second drives that the NFL just hasn't adopted. Most notably is the rule that the clock stops for the chains to move when the offense makes a first down thereby allowing an offensive team with no timeouts a better opportunity to drive down the field at the end of the game. The clock rules implemented last season did the exact opposite, and were completely at odds with the first down rule. As a fan, it made absolutely no sense that the NCAA would adopt these two end-of-game rules in tandem as one was intended to maximize the number of plays a team could run late in a game, while the other was intended to minimize it. It's not an accident that there are many more last minute, dramatic drives in college football than the NFL. These drives provide fans with drama and excitement that is unparalleled, and I hope the NCAA realizes that it should be adopting rules that encourage these drives...or at the very least not adopting rules that discourage them. Well, I posted my thoughts about it, asking for people to come here and leave a positive comment. Bottom line - it's the right thing to do, and Josh, you have done something great for the NCAA. You're making them appear human, something that a lot of people probably didn't think possible. I think the change on starting the clock on kickoffs back to when the receiving team touches the ball is a good start. Ideally, the NCAA would go back to the 2005 rules and trim the commercial interruptions, but they aren't likely to bite one of the hands that feeds them. I wrote more about it on my blog. Speeding up the games is basically what the new rules caused in 2006. Fewer plays were played and the clock ultimately altered the outcome of games at the end. Most teams and coaches that lost games within the last min or last few seconds were all wondering what if they had those few seconds or minutes back on the clock to charge down the field for a winning field goal or touchdown. Also the new rules brought statistics down, less time resulted in less plays, which resulted in less performance statistically. So I agree with the rule changing of college football. I vote for changing the clock rules back to the 2005 standards. We don't need shorter games, and if you really want shorter games then get rid of the frivolous instant replays that occur and the TV timeouts. Put commercials on the edge of the screen while play keeps going...that will shorten games AND improve the player, live audience and TV viewing experience. I think the changing of the rules from 2005 to 2006 for college football should be looked at again. The example that the author gave of the Penn State- Wisconsin game (I was watching when this happened) when Wisconsin kept kicking the ball out of bounds so the clock had to run out I think it took away from the game of football. If college football still had the rules from 2005 this situation would have never happened and maybe Penn State would have returned the kick and won the game but we will never know. As a former football official for many years, I think one rule in college football should be changed. I use the south carolina at tenn. game this year as an a case in point. On the last play of the game in regulation, tenn. attempted a field goal to send the game to overtime. The kick was missed, however a dead ball encroachment foul was called on the kicking team. This of course gave tenn. another chance, which they made. They then won in overtime, so the team that committed the foul got an advantage. I would propose that encroachment by the defense remain a dead ball foul, except during an extra point or field goal try. The defense is being the one penalized for a foul by the offense. This is not sour grapes, just a fair deal for all schools. correction to my comment on november 8 2007. the last part of my comment should have said THAT ENCROACHMENT BY THE OFFENSE SHOULD REMAIN A DEAD BALL FOUL EXCEPT------- Post a Comment |
  
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