CBS: How long is too long a college football game?

Donate To GopherHole
BleedGopher

BleedGopher

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 11, 2008
Messages
61,110
Reaction score
16,732
Points
113
per CBS:

Football Bowl Subdivision games averaged three hours, 23 minutes in 2014, up six minutes from 2013 and fueling talk again from conference commissioners on how to shorten the game into a more fan-friendly window.

Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott is so concerned about long games that he's advocating the NCAA adopt the NFL policy of a running clock after first downs. Scott also wants college football to consider the NFL's replay system in which coaches have a limited number of challenges so not every play in theory gets reviewed.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefoo.../how-long-is-too-long-a-college-football-game

Go Gophers!!
 

I pretty much commit a whole day to going to home football games anyways, somtimes more if I go the night before or stay the night of, driving 3 hours to & from to attend. So, the length of the game doesn't really affect or concern me too much.
 

BleedGopher said:
per CBS:

Football Bowl Subdivision games averaged three hours, 23 minutes in 2014, up six minutes from 2013 and fueling talk again from conference commissioners on how to shorten the game into a more fan-friendly window.

Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott is so concerned about long games that he's advocating the NCAA adopt the NFL policy of a running clock after first downs. Scott also wants college football to consider the NFL's replay system in which coaches have a limited number of challenges so not every play in theory gets reviewed.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefoo.../how-long-is-too-long-a-college-football-game

Go Gophers!!
Click to expand...

The problem isn't the time in the game, it isn't even the replay though I think his idea of doing it like the NFL is not a bad one. The problem is the commercial breaks. But they can't touch those because there are too many $$ at stake. So let's speed up the action on the field so that we can get to the commercial breaks faster.
 

The high-pressure, commercialized world of FBS is playing a much longer game than other NCAA divisions. While FBS games averaged 3:23 in 2014, the Football Championship Subdivision was 2:55, Division II was 2:45 and Division III was 2:41.
Click to expand...

I've always felt the clock should run after a 1st down......same as NFL. However the real problem is presented in the above quote.............TV commercials.

Same with MLB. They keep trying to find ways to speed up the game but the problem is the commercials. MLB went from 1.5 minutes between innings to 3.5 minutes. That's 34 minutes right there.
 

2 timeouts a game. They only use them to affect the clock. Not like anybody really needs the break.
 


I don't like the idea of shortening the game by running the play clock. I'd rather they cut the number of commercials, timeouts, or other things that cause games to run long.
 

ok here is the deal with length of any sporting event.

get rid of all the commercial breaks and any game is the right length. for gods sake in basketball there are so many TO's for TV its crazy even after a team calls one at 16:10 and the whistle blows at 15:50 there is another TO

in football how many times do players stand and wait for a TV time out

here is the answer
charge more for the commercials so they don't have to put so many on and then you save about 30 minutes each game!
 

Replay adds probably 10-15 minutes per game in the big ten.
I'd be willing to bet.

And they get it wrong half the time on replay anyways. End replay.
Or tell the replay official they get 3 views at regular speed, and if it isn't obvious don't change it. It would make reviews take less than a minute.
 

MNGoldenGophers1 said:
I don't like the idea of shortening the game by running the play clock. I'd rather they cut the number of commercials, timeouts, or other things that cause games to run long.
Click to expand...

You are 100% right and there is also no shot that any change that gets made will have anything to do with the stuff you listed. In the end if they figure out a way to adjust the on the field action to fit a shorter window they will then feel they have extra space to add some additional commercial time. Maybe a 15 second Geico add between snaps or something like that.
 



MNVCGUY said:
The problem isn't the time in the game, it isn't even the replay though I think his idea of doing it like the NFL is not a bad one. The problem is the commercial breaks. But they can't touch those because there are too many $$ at stake. So let's speed up the action on the field so that we can get to the commercial breaks faster.
Click to expand...

But commercial breaks have always been a part of the game. The issue is the type of offenses teams run now days. More passing and more plays in general means longer games. There were 198 offensive plays in the TCU-Baylor game this year.

10 years ago there were 29 teams that averaged 75 or more plays per game. This year there were 51.
 

MNVCGUY said:
You are 100% right and there is also no shot that any change that gets made will have anything to do with the stuff you listed. In the end if they figure out a way to adjust the on the field action to fit a shorter window they will then feel they have extra space to add some additional commercial time. Maybe a 15 second Geico add between snaps or something like that.
Click to expand...

Or, you could just have the announcers at the stadium read Subway ads like they did while NMSU was running a play a few years back. Problem solved.

Seriously though, I still don't understand how that happens. Some of them must be pre-recorded.
 

station19 said:
I've always felt the clock should run after a 1st down......same as NFL. However the real problem is presented in the above quote.............TV commercials.

Same with MLB. They keep trying to find ways to speed up the game but the problem is the commercials. MLB went from 1.5 minutes between innings to 3.5 minutes. That's 34 minutes right there.
Click to expand...

To me, that's the obvious low-hanging fruit. The football clock is meant to run unless the ball is bouncing around downfield or out of bounds. Game times jumped precipitously when they instituted that rule, and if they want to shorten games, that's the place to start.

Alas, not sure what to do about greed - aka the length and number of commercial breaks. They keep getting longer, and the games keep getting less watchable as a result.
 




Halftime seems to last forever -- 20 minutes versus 12 in the NFL. That will never change, though, because the band is such a big part of the event.
 

One way to speed up the game would be to shorten the play clock. knock it down to 20 seconds. I agree on not stopping the clock on 1st downs - get the team up to the line and be ready to run a play.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
One way to speed up the game would be to shorten the play clock. knock it down to 20 seconds. I agree on not stopping the clock on 1st downs - get the team up to the line and be ready to run a play.
Click to expand...

I don't think that would do much. Yes there would be less time between plays but there would also be more plays. More plays means more scoring, more first downs, and more incomplete passes. I think it would be a wash at best. Maybe I'm wrong though.
 

Get rid of replay. Coaches and players don't get do overs. If a player makes too many mistakes he gets benched. If a coach makes too many mistakes he gets fired. If a ref makes too many mistakes he gets to have someone upstairs review. Never liked the replay.
 

I'm fine with the length of the games. That just means that Gopher games last a little longer.
 

Didn't they try this a few years ago, going to an NFL style running clock? It was during the metrodome and my memory from those years is a bit hazy but I thought it significantly shortened the game, less than 3 hours short.
 

When I watch the replay in 60 min.....it's the commercials that are missing.
 

Denver_Gopher said:
Get rid of replay. Coaches and players don't get do overs. If a player makes too many mistakes he gets benched. If a coach makes too many mistakes he gets fired. If a ref makes too many mistakes he gets to have someone upstairs review. Never liked the replay.
Click to expand...

To be fair, the best refs in the world are going to miss things and make mistakes. I agree the refs need to get better but they're never going to be perfect. I'd rather get the calls right. The issue with replays is more the process takes too long.
 

GophersInIowa said:
To be fair, the best refs in the world are going to miss things and make mistakes. I agree the refs need to get better but they're never going to be perfect. I'd rather get the calls right. The issue with replays is more the process takes too long.
Click to expand...

The refs get the reviews incorrect a good deal of the time as well. The game isn't meant to be played at slow motion. I would argue any call you can't overturn after watching at regular speed should not be overturned.
 

Any football game longer than a cricket match, is too long.
 


In my dream world the universities would tell the networks that there will be no game delays for TV. The game will continue as it's supposed to. The network can take their commercial breaks and show the plays that were missed in a compressed fashion until they catch up. If viewers don't like it then they should go to the game in person.
 


Fix the stuff you can fix. As long as FB pays for 25 non-revenue sports, cutting the commercials can't happen.
 

GophersInIowa said:
But commercial breaks have always been a part of the game. The issue is the type of offenses teams run now days. More passing and more plays in general means longer games. There were 198 offensive plays in the TCU-Baylor game this year.

10 years ago there were 29 teams that averaged 75 or more plays per game. This year there were 51.
Click to expand...

You are correct about the commercial breaks being part of the game but there used to be fewer built in breaks and they were significantly shorter.
 

Yes, the commercials are the problem but they aren't going anywhere because they pay the bills. The only types of changes that can truly make a difference are running the clock on first downs (but maybe not inside of 2 minutes???) and reducing replays (I would favor going to coaches challenges on this one).

In basketball on the other hand there are so many TV timeouts, there is no reason for coaches to get to call as many as they do. The number of team timeouts there needs to be reduced to about 2 per half. I like hockey...1 per game and even then it's usually not used.
 

Hates Monikers said:
Halftime seems to last forever -- 20 minutes versus 12 in the NFL. That will never change, though, because the band is such a big part of the event.
Click to expand...

Correct - that is the biggest difference right there IMO. I think they could cut it down to like 16 and still have plenty of time for the bands.

Someone else mentioned it as well, but the offenses teams run today is the other big reason. More plays per game = more first downs, more scoring, & more incompletions, thus more clock stoppages.

I think replay is a part of it as well. I don't have any numbers in front of me but it seems like about 80% of the time they stop the clock, the call on the field was correct. Having every play reviewed in college is a nice thought, but it creates way too many unnecessary stoppages. They could easily fix this by switching to the NFL replay system.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom