BleedGopher
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Per Auerbach:
College football is back, but that doesn’t mean it will look exactly the same as the way we left it. The NCAA changed three rules this offseason, and we’re here to help you understand how and why each change will work.
The three changes are aimed at shortening Division I and II college football games and reducing the number of plays per contest. Reducing the number of plays is both a player safety concern, with an expanded College Football Playoff on the way next season, and a fan engagement concern, with FBS games averaging close to three hours and 30 minutes while the NFL average is 3:10. Additional plays per game create additional opportunities for collisions and injuries. The game’s stakeholders are trying to limit the total number of “exposures,” as experts and administrators call them, that athletes experience across the entire season.
So, here’s what’s changing:
1. The game clock will run after first downs (as it does in the NFL), except for the last two minutes of each half.
Prior to the rule change, officials stopped the clock on every first down awarded. Now, they’ll only stop the clock after a first down in the final two minutes of the half. Although some fans have worried this change would remove one of college football’s superior rules compared to the NFL, Shaw reiterated that there will still be plenty of time for game-winning drives in college football.
“Even if you’re out of timeouts in the last two minutes, if you can get a first down and we stop the clock, you get an opportunity to score on a drive — and we are keeping that,” Shaw said. “The idea here is to keep the game moving. If nothing else changes, this will probably eliminate seven or eight plays per game. You may not even notice that seven or eight plays. But if you look at a 12-game season and eight plays per game, that’s 96 student-athlete exposures that we would reduce over the course of the season.”
With under two minutes left in the second and fourth quarters, the game clock will be stopped to award the first down and restarted on the referee’s signal. The clock will be restarted when the ball is ready for play, which is when the official places the ball down and is in position to officiate.
2. A team cannot call consecutive timeouts.
Say farewell to the most extreme tactics for icing the kicker. Teams are no longer allowed to call consecutive timeouts in the same dead-ball period. “This was done to keep the game moving,” Shaw said. “We’ve all been there: The defense has three timeouts left at the end of the first half, and they call to ice the kicker with all three timeouts. We lose five minutes of our lives, and the kicker kicks it through.”
The offense can call a timeout, followed by the defense calling a timeout — but neither side can call two in the same dead-ball period.
3. Untimed downs will only occur, as needed, in the second and fourth quarters. If there is a foul at the end of the first or third quarter, it will carry over into the next quarter.
Previously, if there was a penalty accepted for a live-ball foul during the last timed down of a quarter, the officials would extend the quarter with an untimed down. Now, that will only occur in the second and fourth quarters to close out the half’s action.
“We’re not going to extend the first quarter and we’re not going to extend the third quarter — that just adds another play to the game,” Shaw said. “We’re still going to enforce the penalty, but it’ll be carried over to the start of the following quarter. So that’s one way that we can reduce a play here and there.”
theathletic.com
Go Gophers!!
College football is back, but that doesn’t mean it will look exactly the same as the way we left it. The NCAA changed three rules this offseason, and we’re here to help you understand how and why each change will work.
The three changes are aimed at shortening Division I and II college football games and reducing the number of plays per contest. Reducing the number of plays is both a player safety concern, with an expanded College Football Playoff on the way next season, and a fan engagement concern, with FBS games averaging close to three hours and 30 minutes while the NFL average is 3:10. Additional plays per game create additional opportunities for collisions and injuries. The game’s stakeholders are trying to limit the total number of “exposures,” as experts and administrators call them, that athletes experience across the entire season.
So, here’s what’s changing:
1. The game clock will run after first downs (as it does in the NFL), except for the last two minutes of each half.
Prior to the rule change, officials stopped the clock on every first down awarded. Now, they’ll only stop the clock after a first down in the final two minutes of the half. Although some fans have worried this change would remove one of college football’s superior rules compared to the NFL, Shaw reiterated that there will still be plenty of time for game-winning drives in college football.
“Even if you’re out of timeouts in the last two minutes, if you can get a first down and we stop the clock, you get an opportunity to score on a drive — and we are keeping that,” Shaw said. “The idea here is to keep the game moving. If nothing else changes, this will probably eliminate seven or eight plays per game. You may not even notice that seven or eight plays. But if you look at a 12-game season and eight plays per game, that’s 96 student-athlete exposures that we would reduce over the course of the season.”
With under two minutes left in the second and fourth quarters, the game clock will be stopped to award the first down and restarted on the referee’s signal. The clock will be restarted when the ball is ready for play, which is when the official places the ball down and is in position to officiate.
2. A team cannot call consecutive timeouts.
Say farewell to the most extreme tactics for icing the kicker. Teams are no longer allowed to call consecutive timeouts in the same dead-ball period. “This was done to keep the game moving,” Shaw said. “We’ve all been there: The defense has three timeouts left at the end of the first half, and they call to ice the kicker with all three timeouts. We lose five minutes of our lives, and the kicker kicks it through.”
The offense can call a timeout, followed by the defense calling a timeout — but neither side can call two in the same dead-ball period.
3. Untimed downs will only occur, as needed, in the second and fourth quarters. If there is a foul at the end of the first or third quarter, it will carry over into the next quarter.
Previously, if there was a penalty accepted for a live-ball foul during the last timed down of a quarter, the officials would extend the quarter with an untimed down. Now, that will only occur in the second and fourth quarters to close out the half’s action.
“We’re not going to extend the first quarter and we’re not going to extend the third quarter — that just adds another play to the game,” Shaw said. “We’re still going to enforce the penalty, but it’ll be carried over to the start of the following quarter. So that’s one way that we can reduce a play here and there.”
Understanding college football's three new clock rule changes
Reducing the number of plays per game was both a safety concern and a fan engagement concern for college football leaders this offseason.
theathletic.com
Go Gophers!!
