Potential college football rule changes aim to limit plays and exposures while shortening the game

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Nax5 said:
I do find myself watching games on DVR right when they finish. Or start halfway through. I find it takes the edge off, since I can just fast forward right to the plays and not give myself any time to get nervous. But if games were considerably shorter (and not filled with more commercial breaks), I'd probably watch more live.
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Watching games by DVR is great and really shortens the time. The one drawback to that is missing out on posting in the game thread.:)
 

GFBfan said:
Watching games by DVR is great and really shortens the time. The one drawback to that is missing out on posting in the game thread.:)
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We would all probably benefit from less posting in the in-game threads anyway....man those get toxic when things aren't going well. :)
 

Eventually they're going to figure out how to force you to watch commercials in DVR. YouTube already kind of does this, if you fast forward enough it forces you to watch a commercial anyway.

YouTube TV's DVR so far does not do this, at least in my experience. You're still given free reign to fast forward as you please.

But I think it's just a matter of time.

Or, at least, you'll have to pay extra to keep the ability to fast forward through commercials.
 

Word said:
I watch most of my Vikings games where I start watching about 1 hour in on the dvr and catch up to live by the end. So yes I wish games were shorter. Gopher games I'm usually on here so I have to be live so I can complain about the refs in real time.
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but do you skip the time when the guys are actually playing or just through the commercials/reviews/challenges/injuries?
 

upnorthkid said:
but do you skip the time when the guys are actually playing or just through the commercials/reviews/challenges/injuries?
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For sure the commercials, some of the huddling time too.
 


60's Guy said:
If NFL games are 12 to 16 minutes shorter and the goal is for the game to take less time...doesn't it make sense to just adopt NFL rules? That way the viewing experience is consistent. Many games I ask myself is that an NFL rule, a college rule or a high school rule I'm thinking of? Because, I think the officials just screwed up.
Be nice if rules were the same for all levels. Shorter periods, quarters or halves I can keep track of if we need adjustments.
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I believe half of the time difference between NFL and college is simply the length of the halftimes. That being said, halftime is one of the great collegiate experiences and I hope we always see the marching band.

I would prefer they move to getting rid of the automatic clock stops on first down, or at least apply until five minutes are left in each half.
 

Does this really reduce plays? I suppose it does because it forces a team to clock the ball. But if you run for a first down, the clock stops, but then it starts up again. So for PJ, it shouldn't have much of an impact.

Am I missing something?
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Does this really reduce plays? I suppose it does because it forces a team to clock the ball. But if you run for a first down, the clock stops, but then it starts up again. So for PJ, it shouldn't have much of an impact.

Am I missing something?
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You are not. Some seem to still think the old rule of the clock stopping on first down, and staying stopped until the next snap, is still in play. At this point it is just a matter of seconds that the clock is stopped after a first down so the overall affect on game time is minimal.

You might eliminate a play or two with this but outside of that it won't accomplish much.
 

I have noted that other sports seem to be dropping in more of the "in-game" ads, where the PBP guy says "let's hear a quick message from Tria" and we get a split-screen with a 15-second blurb from the sponsor on half the screen.

I could live with more of that in football games if it meant fewer breaks. the one that drives me bat-bleep crazy - and I think this is more in the NFL - goes like this: Commercial break after a TD. Come back for the Kickoff. KO goes into the end zone for a touchback, and they go to another commercial break. Winds up being 4+ minutes of commercials surrounding a play where nothing happens.

Admittedly, I rarely go to games in person anymore. I am sure it's worse in the stadium. at home, I can check e-mail or Twitter, run to the can or whatever. In the stadium, I assume that most people spend the down time staring at their phones.

of course, this is where the future of in-game betting lies. If we get legal sports gambling, they want everyone placing bets during the breaks.
 



MNVCGUY said:
We would all probably benefit from less posting in the in-game threads anyway....man those get toxic when things aren't going well. :)
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Banning posts of any kind after a loss would shorten games (in my mind).

I think games are too long simply due to advertising. The orange-sleeve guy is on my personal hit-list.

I think this is really about less plays, not game time length. The "shorten games" part of the proposal is no more than subterfuge to get buy-in by the fans.
 

I do think the networks are a bit concerned. 10 - 15 years ago, 3 hours between games was fine. Now it's 3 1/2 hours and still getting runover. Some of it is commercials, some is more passing and incompletions and sideline patterns but trend going wrong direction for the smoothness of a TV schedule.
 

Word said:
I watch most of my Vikings games where I start watching about 1 hour in on the dvr and catch up to live by the end. So yes I wish games were shorter. Gopher games I'm usually on here so I have to be live so I can complain about the refs in real time.
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I do as well for most sports. I am fine with the length as a ST holder, but would not complain if they were less than 3 hours.
 






btowngopher said:
Stupid. Want to limit exposure, play a different sport. Want to shorten the games, it’s not rocket science, literally just shorten the game clock from 60 minutes.
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I mean it doesn’t make sense that the college game has significantly more snaps per game than pro football.
I am against reducing plays because I like football but I don’t think the exposure argument is a bad one.
Nfl you players are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and per week of the season they have fewer snaps in nfl games
 

Some guy said:
I mean it doesn’t make sense that the college game has significantly more snaps per game than pro football.
I am against reducing plays because I like football but I don’t think the exposure argument is a bad one.
Nfl you players are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and per week of the season they have fewer snaps in nfl games
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The fact that NFL games tend to be lower scoring and much closer than college games probably plays a huge role in the difference in the number of snaps per game.

That and the fact that NFL teams don't typically run the gimmick offenses where the goal is to snap the ball super quick. Those college offenses are designed to run a ton of plays.

I looked at a random NFL week and a random week in the top 25 from last year. The NFL week I looked at had one team over 40 points, a handful in the 30s and the rest below that. Most of the games were fairly close as well.

The college week was in the middle of the conference season but there were still multiple teams in the 50+ scoring range, a bunch in the 40s and there were some extreme blowouts 40+ points separating the teams. That isn't to say there aren't lopsided results in the NFL but there are way fewer of them.
 

MNVCGUY said:
The fact that NFL games tend to be lower scoring and much closer than college games probably plays a huge role in the difference in the number of snaps per game.

That and the fact that NFL teams don't typically run the gimmick offenses where the goal is to snap the ball super quick. Those college offenses are designed to run a ton of plays.

I looked at a random NFL week and a random week in the top 25 from last year. The NFL week I looked at had one team over 40 points, a handful in the 30s and the rest below that. Most of the games were fairly close as well.

The college week was in the middle of the conference season but there were still multiple teams in the 50+ scoring range, a bunch in the 40s and there were some extreme blowouts 40+ points separating the teams. That isn't to say there aren't lopsided results in the NFL but there are way fewer of them.
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I haven’t looked at stats but I think the number of incompletions is probably higher in a college football game. Lower scoring games help too.
You call them gimmick offenses…I call them great offenses that don’t work as well in the nfl because the defenses are too good and your guys might die from the hits they take
 


Bob_Loblaw said:
Does this really reduce plays? I suppose it does because it forces a team to clock the ball. But if you run for a first down, the clock stops, but then it starts up again. So for PJ, it shouldn't have much of an impact.

Am I missing something?
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Simply running the clock after a first down (instead of stopping the clock) would likely trim a handful plays off a game (although nothing too significant.)

If you have 20-30 first downs where the clock would normally stop for :06-:12 seconds that now runs, you'd likely trim 2-3 minutes of game time. Less game time means fewer plays will get run over the course of a game. How many plays? Who knows? Maybe 5 plays? No more than 8-10 plays?
 

I have an idea, how about we stop trying to make the superior game (CFB) more like the inferior game (NFL) in the name of “””safety””” AKA more ad revenue.
 

theTurning said:
I have an idea, how about we stop trying to make the superior game (CFB) more like the inferior game (NFL) in the name of “””safety””” AKA more ad revenue.
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Shortening the games would make more ad revenue?
 

Perhaps it will be more of a mental thing that the clock is running as opposed to stopping after every first down in the game. It's amazing what little things will do to the brain.
 

Word said:
Shortening the games would make more ad revenue?
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None of this is about ‘safety’, it’s about maximizing revenue. The most effective way to do that is to add commercial air time, something the NFL had been doing for years. They know they can’t simply add time to already-long games so they need to reduce actual game time.
 

Some guy said:
The nfl should adopt the only need 1 foot rule. We would see more unbelievable catches
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I've said this for years. The NFL should also adopt the college pass interference penalty. 15 yards only. None of this 50 yard gain on a PI call.

And college should adopt NFL overtime (only with both teams getting a full possession) and end in a tie after 15 minutes. I hate college overtime.
 

Some guy said:
You call them gimmick offenses…I call them great offenses that don’t work as well in the nfl because the defenses are too good and your guys might die from the hits they take
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I agree. It's why the college game is so much more fun.
 

The NFL has such absurdly high ratings, that they can actually dictate how commercial timeouts happen in a game.

CFB is popular and has good ratings, but not that high. TV gets more power in dictating commercials.
 

theTurning said:
None of this is about ‘safety’, it’s about maximizing revenue. The most effective way to do that is to add commercial air time, something the NFL had been doing for years. They know they can’t simply add time to already-long games so they need to reduce actual game time.
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The NFL games are shorter because they have more commercials? Wouldn't that make the games longer?
 

Word said:
The NFL games are shorter because they have more commercials? Wouldn't that make the games longer?
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The NFL wants to keep games within a roughly 3 hour window. The only way to add commercials -- while keeping in the 3 hour window -- is to shorten the actual game time.
 
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tjgopher said:
The NFL wants to keep games within a roughly 3 hour window. The only way to do add commercials -- while keeping in the 3 hour window -- is to shorten the actual game time.
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I guess when I think of game time I think of how much time I need to spend watching, not playing time. As a fan I just wish they could keep it closer to 3 hours of "watching time".
 

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