College football games have gotten noticeably longer in recent years, and NCAA officials believe that the reason is that more teams across the country are passing the ball increasingly often, leading to more clock stoppages than ever before since the clock stops with an incompletion. And the NCAA reportedly has a plan to fix it.
According to Seth Emerson of The Athletic, NCAA coordinator of officials Steve Shaw has a plan to cut down the length of the games: restart the game clock after completions.
Shaw’s plan would be to treat incompletions like the league currently treats players running out of bounds – the clock initially stops when the play ends, but once the ball is set and ready to play, the clock re-starts. According to Shaw, that would cut the game time by about 10 seconds each time it happens.
But the college football world isn’t all that excited by this potential rule change, with many pointing out that it would save much more time if the networks would simply have fewer and shorter commercial breaks.
Or …. maybe have fewer and shorter TV timeouts. Oh, wait, can't do that. https://t.co/952PLAixx3
— Mike McFeely (@McFeely_Inforum) September 26, 2022
Football games are three hours. Baseball games (on average) are three hours long. I don’t want them shortened. That’s three hours that I’ve chosen to commit to and that I enjoy.
Stop trying to rob us of joy. https://t.co/p0RbA4EaOB
— Mark R. Lindquist (@markrlindquist) September 26, 2022
1. Why change the rules? We good
2. Let’s make sure to try to cut time everywhere we can besides commercials and reviews! Just add a damn timer on reviews and if it’s not clear then call stands https://t.co/pwn1P7kodW— FQ Arkansas (@FQArkansas) September 26, 2022
Some executive at Fox is typing up a "what if we played 8 quarters that were 7:30 in length, and we had two halftimes" Powerpoint as we speak. https://t.co/9Yz2P0vTDv
— Garrett Searight (@GarrettSearight) September 26, 2022
— Michael McCleary (@MikeJMcCleary) September 26, 2022
So, in short, solving a problem created at least in part by commercials/broadcast needs with…less football?
Got it. https://t.co/5ZHKAGYpLf
— Eli Lederman (@ByEliLederman) September 26, 2022
Just an abysmal idea thought of by people who don't like the sport. There is no real game length problem except broadcast windows that are too narrow. People don't get enough college football as it is, now you're more or less trying to go running clock? No thanks. https://t.co/UTpbqilWvm
— Kevin Clark (@bykevinclark) September 26, 2022
Just superimpose ads on the field and in the score bug and stop adding commercials. https://t.co/R5Tc0AP3Tj
— Tony Gerdeman (@TonyGerdeman) September 26, 2022
These changes aren’t official yet and haven’t even been formally proposed. But still, it’s safe to say that the college football world doesn’t agree with them.