College football slowly turning into NFL
Posted: Sunday, February 17, 2008 6:28 PM
After meeting for three days this week, the NCAA “Football Rules Committee” emerged with several proposed changes for the upcoming 2008 season. One can assume that there were plenty of NFL rulebooks tucked into briefcases in that room.
Unlike last year, when the primary goal of the committee was to fix the timing errors they made in 2006, the committee’s focus was to “enhance the safety of our student-athletes.” The NFL-esque results included: stricter guidelines and penalties for dangerous helmet-related contact, a simplified interpretation of chop blocks and prohibiting the “horse-collar” tackle. We’re not sure why those rules weren’t in place to begin with, but it’s good to have them now in the hands of the “Playing Rules Oversight Panel” (we aren’t making that up).
But the committee didn’t stop there. Timing was still on its minds. No doubt placed there by the television executives who are still unhappy about college games averaging nearly three-and-a-half hours.
Those TV suits would like to see this programming fit into a tighter and more consistent window. And if you’re looking for cookie-cutter presentations and formulaic football programming, there’s nobody doing it better than the NFL, which has spent years of honing its craft in that regard, always with revenue in mind.
So the committee went right to the NFL rulebook and plucked out the out-of-bounds rule. I’m still not used to that one. It calls for the game clock to run after a ballcarrier goes out of bounds and the ball is made ready for play. The rule will not apply in the last two minutes of each half, so you won’t really notice it too much, but I’ve always thought that out-of-bounds and stopping-the-clock have always gone well hand-in-hand.
The play clock also appears headed for NFLization, going to the 40-second model. Previously, the college game utilized a 25-second play clock, but it started to countdown only after the ball was made ready for play by the officials. The NFL model calls for the 40-second clock to start winding down as soon as the previous play is declared dead.
In NCAA-speak, this is all part of “continuing efforts to maintain a reasonable length of games and create a consistent pace of play.” Let’s hope that television viewers can still expect to lots of cutaway shots of Michigan students pulling their hair out, the USC Song Girls dancing or Les Miles perfecting his scowl.
Something that goes against the committee’s desire to keep game length in check is their proposal to give coaches back their initial right to challenge a ruling on the field if that first challenge goes their way and the call is overturned. Logically this makes all the sense in the world, but we still have to applaud the committee for choosing logic and fair play over TV’s time crunch.
A couple of the other changes recommended by the committee might end up being controversial at some point next season.
First of all, instead of issuing a “sideline warning” as has been done just fine in the past, officials now will be instructed to throw a flag and enforce penalty yardage at the first instance of a team’s bench area infringing upon the playing field.
When one considers that the bench area at college football game – already one of the most volatile patches of land on the planet – gets particularly excited at crucial points late in the game, what happens when an official pulls out a flag for an infraction spelled out in the rulebook that really doesn’t have much bearing on the game? That won’t be pretty.
Couldn’t that be done at nearly any point in the game and still fall within what’s stated in the rulebook? Now, offensive holding isn’t the only penalty that can be called on just about every play in a football game, you can add “sideline control” to the list in the college version.
Another messy issue could result from abolishment of the “incidental” 5-yard face mask penalty. While it does take the severity evaluation out of the equation for officials, who previously had to decide between the five and 15-yard varieties, the middle ground didn’t seem to be a problem. Wasn’t that a good example of making a point regarding player safety, while not having an overly significant impact on the positioning of the line of scrimmage?
Hands are always dangerously up near the face mask during a game and now you can expect even more of that since 15 yards will be marked off only if the contact includes “pulling, twisting or turning.” The overall increase in hands in the face mask area will surely result in an increase in unintentional actions that end up being dangerous.
Oh well … there’s always next year to make more adjustments.
