The NCAA Football Rules Committee agreed on several rule changes last week including the approval of general use of instant replay for all conferences.
The replay procedure will be similar to the one used by the Southeastern Conference last season in which a replay official in the press box reviews all plays and controls the stoppage of the game.
The game will be stopped by the replay official only if it is on a list of reviewable plays mandated by the committee and has a direct, competitive impact on the game.
There is a new twist though. Similar to the NFL, coaches will be allowed to challenge a questionable call on the field by signaling for a timeout.
Each team will receive one challenge during the course of the game. If the challenge overturns the call on the field, the coach would retain the right to challenge a call later in the game and would not be charged a timeout.
If the call is not reversed, the team loses a timeout and must rely on the replay official to challenge any more calls throughout the remainder of the contest.
“It is important to understand that the goal of instant replay is to correct game-changing errors with minimal interruption to the game,” said Charles Broyles, chair of the committee. “We think the system we approved accomplishes that.”
Another issue the committee addressed was shortening the length of the college football game, which routinely exceeds three-and-a-half hours.
The committee innovated several ideas to shorten the game without disrupting its normal flow, including shortening halftime from 20 to 15 minutes unless something different is mutually agreed upon by the two participating teams.
“We’re saying that we don’t believe halftime needs to be more than 15 minutes,” Broyles said. “We also understand that halftime shows, homecoming and other presentations are important to our institutions, so the allowance is there.”
Other changes include starting the clock on kickoffs when the foot touches the ball, shortening the kicking tee to one inch to lessen touchbacks and starting the clock when the ball is ready for play on a change of possession.
Also, if a procedural foul occurs by the kicking team, the opposing team will be able to choose between accepting the penalty after the return or forcing the kicking team to kick again five yards from the original line of scrimmage.
The committee also voted to ban the use of tinted eye shields during games after seeing the number of shield requests rapidly grow in the past four years.
All of the committee’s requests will be considered by the Playing Rules Oversight Panel for final approval before they become official.
 
Contact Jeff Martin at [email protected]