We had some great conversation centering on the new clock rules in college football in Tuesday Morning Football Bytes. Additionally, one of our readers link this article that provides some great commentary on the topic that should not be overlooked.
This is a BIG ISSUE in college football that fans should not just ignore and accept.
Before we get into more comments on the issue, allow us to direct your attention to WeHateTheNewClockRules.com for you to register your dissatisfaction.
Yesterday, The Wizard of Odds provided us with more statistical data to support what everyone already innately felt. (Link to blog entry) – A statistical analysis of ALL GAMES done by cfbstats.com indicates that games played thusfar in 2006 have had 18.3 less plays from scrimmage than games played in 2005.
As I said before – Who really cares about shortening games (other than the folks that are looking for better scheduling of their commercials on televison?
* Those of us who PAY MONEY to attend college football games WANT TO SEE FOOTBALL. We pay all of that money to actually got to the game and see it played…why would we want it to be shorter and not longer? Since LifeTimeRights and season ticket holders bought tickets under the impression that they were getting about 170 plays and three and half hours of football per game, are we now entitled to a rebate because we our purchase has now decreased by 10%?
* Does anyone who watches games on television really give a shit if it lasts 3 hours and 12 minutes or 3 hours and 34 minutes? If it is a good game – which most of them are – then we will watch. If it isn’t a good game, then we won’t.
The Blue-Gray Sky illustrates the rise in football ticket prices (at Notre Dame) in the graph below taken from this blog entry:
College football has NEVER been more popular than it is right now. If the old rules facilitated such an enormous rise to popularity, why would anyone screw with the practices that brought the sport so much popularity? It is just asinine.
The new rules will undoubtedly generate significantly fewer comebacks and less exciting end-of-game scenarios. WHY do something that that blatantly destroys the excitement of the game? I just don’t get it.
Our friend Noah accurately surmised the following: “it’s better to take the delay-of-game penalty and save your timeouts for the end of the game rather than to burn a TO early in a half because you couldn’t get the play in.” He is exactly right. So, I’m just curious how adding the time to call and mark off at least 3 to 5 penalties a game serve to help speed up the game?
Speaking of Noah…this entry wouldn’t be complete without elevating his awesome comments on the topic:
Years ago, Mad Magazine did one of their little fold-ins at the back of the book on the national football contracts in football. Anyone remember those fold-ins? They were Al Jaffee pictures and it had two little marks at the top of the page and you folded the picture so the marks met and the one image merged into something new.
The original said, “There’s a new rule and a new official that will totally change everything about football this year.� (or something to that effect) The image was a football scrum with an official standing by ready to blow his whistle.
You fold the page in and it merged into a TV camera and a network guy looking at his watch and giving the signal to the ref on whether or not to start the game back up.
Amazing prescience by the artists of Mad. This was in about 1966 (I had a huge stack of ‘em that I bought at a yard sale that dated back to about 1962).
They want the noon game DONE by the time it’s 3:30, so the second game can start and people don’t miss the beginning/end of one contest as it plugs along. They want it like the NFL which has its games down to swiss-like precision. Doesn’t matter if the game goes to overtime or whether its a slugfest or an air-it-out shoot-out, the game lasts three hours. No more, no less. (so it seems)
DeadSpin had a nice link on the topic this morning; and yesterday EDSBS went an entry on the topic today and goes so far as suggesting that you reach out the NCAA with the following:
Your non-democratically elected and likely unresponsive contact for the rule is:
Ty Halpin, NCAA Football Rules Committee Liaison
NCAA
P.O Box 6222
Indianapolis,Indiana 46206-6222FAX: (317) 917-6800
E-mail: [email protected]Give ‘em hell.
September 8th Update
There continues to be a lot of focus on this topic throughout college football. We thought that we would share a couple of additional items.
If you weren’t watching the Oregon State-Boise State game, you may have missed Chris Fowler totally ripping on the new rule change. His statement, paraphrased a little:
“[The rule] takes away about 14 plays per game. For what? So talking heads like us (referring to himself and Kirk Herbstreit) can talk more? That’s crazy. I want more football.”
He expressed my sentiments exactly. The new rule sucks. It takes away a significant portion of one of the great joys in my life, and for that, the rulemaker deserves a swift kick to the crotch. Not that it will do any good, but there is a petition starting up that you should sign.
(2) ESPN’s Bruce Feldman says the “New Rules Changes Stink”
Upon further review, everyone seems to hate the new rules to quicken the game.
I gotta say I thought the changes sounded awful when I heard about them during the offseason, and then after actually seeing the rules come into play, I think they stink even worse than I had anticipated.
To me this isn’t about people not wanting to adjust to a change, like some website overhauling its design and folks carping because they can’t find things any more; this is about watering down a great product.
The NCAA made the changes at the urging of school administrators, who claim it would help reduce the risk of injury to players. Nice thought. Trouble was, that sounds really hypocritical when you’re adding a 12th game and nuking an off week for those same players to rest their bodies.
The changes have already altered strategies. With almost three minutes left, UAB’s game against Oklahoma was essentially over. OU didn’t even need to get a first down since the clock was already ticking before a first down. In terms of the big picture (literally), has it really improved the show that is a college football telecast? Definitely not, especially if you consider this:
“For fans, the most noticeable difference will be the lower football-to-commercials ratio. Florida’s season opener against Southern Mississippi — televised on a pay-per-view basis — lasted seven minutes longer than the Gators’ 2005 opener against Wyoming. Florida and Southern Miss combined to run eight fewer plays Saturday than the Gators and Cowboys ran last year,” Andy Staples writes.
