How will new clock rules change the game?
By
Tony Barnhart | Thursday, August 21, 2008, 06:22 AM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I was on a conference call yesterday with some NCAA and college football officials to discuss a number of aspects about the upcoming season. Since the season starts a week from today, here are some new rules and points of emphasis that will probably interest you and my take on why you, as a fan, should care.
1. New clock rule No. 1: This season the NCAA will adopt a 40/25 second play clock like the one used in the NFL. The 40-second clock will begin as soon as a play is blown dead.
If there is a stoppage of play for a penalty, or after a timeout, etc., then the 25-second clock will be used and will begin as soon as the ball is marked ready for play.
Fans really won’t be able to tell the difference because under the old rules, when a play was over, it would usually take between 13-15 seconds for the officials to mark the ball ready for play and start the 25-second play clock. So the amount of time between plays basically won’t change.
Here’s why the 40-second clock was necessary. Coaches were telling me that some officiating crews were slower than others in getting the ball ready after the end of a play. So depending on what crew you got, the pace of play would vary. Coaches don’t like that.
“I like it (the new rule) because it gives you a more consistent pace of play,” Auburn OC Tony Franklin said. “We like to play fast and this allows us to play fast.”
There could be one difference brought about by the 40-second clock. I’m expecting to see more no-huddle offenses this season as coaches try to take advantage of the new clock to get in a few extra offensive plays per game. But there is a catch. If the offense substitutes, then the defense must be given a chance to bring in players as well. So the official will stand over the ball until all the substitutions are made. If the offense does not substitute, it can snap the ball as soon as the officials put it down.
2. New clock rule No. 2: This, in my opinion, is the big change and the one that fans will notice. In years past when the ball was run out of bounds, the game clock would stop and would not start again until the ball was snapped on the next play. This season when the ball goes out of bounds the game clock will still stop. But once the ball is ready for play, the official will immediately re-start the game clock.
The old rules will go back into effect for the last two minutes of the half and the last two minutes of the game. That gives teams a chance to run the two-minute drill and potentially make a comeback.
And why are we doing this? It’s yet another attempt (the third in three years) to speed up the game without losing too many offensive plays. Two years ago you’ll remember that they put in a bunch of rules changes that shortened the game but cut out about 13 offensive plays on average. The backlash from coaches and fans was severe.
So they went back to basically the old rules last year and games ran 3:22. College football officials would like to get games that average closer to three hours. This rule will definitely speed up the game and the hope is that the increased pace of play that is brought about by the 40-second clock will keep most of the plays in.
Here is the stat to watch. Last year there were on average 143.3 offensive plays per game, or about 72 per team. Watch the first month of the season and see if that figure goes up or down.
Here’s where the no huddle offense comes into play again. In last December’s Chick-fil-A Bowl, Auburn ran 90 plays against Clemson.
“It hard to say what the effect will be but if you want to play fast these rules will allow you to do it,” South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier said.
I know what you’re saying: Why don’t they just cut out some of the commercials and the games will be shorter? You know the answer. TV won’t cut out commercials and the band is not going to shorten half time.
3. Keep it clean; keep it safe: You could see an unusual number of 15-yard penalties in the first few games. Here’s why:
Football officials have been told that this season there will be a new emphasis on cleaning up unsportsmanlike conduct and unnecessary roughness. Officials will be less tolerant of taunting, trash talking and plays they believe are meant to injure another player.
For example, the NCAA has ruled that the “horse-collar” tackle (pulling a guy down from behind by reaching inside the top of his shoulder pads) will draw an automatic 15-yard penalty.
Also the “chop block” rule has been simplified. There used to be situations that allowed two players to block another player high (around the shoulder pads) and low (around his knees) at the same time. Not any more. You block a guy high-low and it’s a flag.
“If we are going to err, we’re going to err on the side of player safety,” said Dave Parry, the Big 10 supervisor of officials. “And we’re going to back our officials even if they are a little strict.”
My experience is when officials are told that something is a point of emphasis, you see it called a lot early in the season in order to get the message across to the players and coaches.
4. Don’t kick it OB: This is another rule that will speed up the game and change some strategy. Under the old rule, if a kickoff went out of bounds, the receiving team got the ball at the 35-yard line. This season the penalty for a kickoff out of bounds will give the offense the ball at its own 40-yad line.
Here is why that is significant: In the past, with the ball being kicked off at the 30-yard line, receiving teams with good return people might elect for a re-kick if the kickoff went out of bounds. It took a lot of time to get all of the players back onto the field and in position to kick off again.
Most coaches are telling me that they will just take the ball on the 40 after an OB kickoff because it’s such good field position.
But here is something to watch for and something coaches will try to avoid. The rule states that the penalty for a kickoff out of bounds is to award the ball to the offense 30 yards from the spot of the kick. So if a kicker sails the ball out of bounds and the receiving team asks for a re-kick, it will take place from the kicker’s 25-yard line. If he kicks the ball out of bounds AGAIN, the offense gets the ball on the 45. That’s huge. So if the opponent thinks you have a shaky kickoff guy, they might make you kick it again.
5. Officials seek consistency; go national: I guess it’s because I’ve been watching college football a long time, but I think this is a really big deal.
In a major effort to make officiating more consistent from conference to conference, the powers that be have created College Football Officiating, LLC. Parry will be its first national coordinator.
This is something college football has needed for a long time because, frankly, different leagues put different emphasis and interpretation on the rules. Coaches would actually adjust their thinking in a game based on where the officials were from.
“We want to eliminate the phrase ‘We don’t call it that way in our conference,’” Parry said. “We don’t want coaches and fans and players to be worried about which particular crew is working which game.”
The organization will hold clinics and send out DVDs to supervisors of officials across the country to point out areas where there may be some inconsistency in officiating. There will be accountability throughout the system, something that is handled only on the local level now.
For a long time coaches have been wanting something to make sure that the rules were interpreted consistently across all conferences. This organization will attempt to do that. It can only help.
“I can’t remember a time when there has been more excitement about a change in officiating,” said Grant Teaff, the executive director of the American Football Coaches Association. “All our coaches want is consistency.
Here is a bonus point that I found interesting.
Trying to stay cool: Ron Courson, Georgia’s director of sports medicine, is very involved in the effort to reduce heat-related injuries in the game. Courson, who is considered to be one of the best sports medicine guys in the country, pointed out to us that 90 percent of the heat related problems in college football take place during preseason practice. That makes sense because the practice takes place in the heat of August when some guys are not in the best of shape, particularly the big fellas.
But Courson said that heat related problems are down, in part, because true freshmen are allowed to come to summer school before the fall semester.
“We have two months to get them in and help them get acclimated to the heat,” Courson said. “It also gives us a chance to get a better grip on their medical history so that we can be proactive from a prevention standpoint. In the past they showed up on reporting day with everybody else.”
It’s such a common sense thing. You wonder why nobody thought of it before.
One week to go. I’m ready to see some football. How about you?
opcorn:
but it's worth it. good stuff, rj.
