Just a year after the NCAA imposed new rules designed to shorten the elapsed time of the average football game, a number of those rules have been reversed in preparation for this season.
The rule concerning change of possession caused much derision among players, coaches and fans. For last season only, the game clock began running as soon as the chains were reset — not the snap — on turnovers or other changes of possession.
Quarterback Daniel Evans said he felt relieved that the 2006 rule was repealed and felt it factored in to the number of narrow losses during last season.
“I love [the change]. Especially after last year, [and] how many close games we had that came down to the end of the game,” Evans said. “I’m loving it.”
While the NCAA did succeed in shedding some minutes off the average game time, it also cut into the number of plays in the game.
According to the rationale provided in a release on NCAA, the NCAA felt the rule was sacrificing the chances of student-athletes being able to participate in more games.
Other measures, like moving the kickoff five yards back to promote more returns and giving the kicker a 25-second play clock, were taken to ensure the cutting into the length of games, while the change of possession rule got scraped.
Strategies were changed across the nation due to last year’s ruling. Teams scrambled to get offenses onto the field quickly when their team got the ball back as the game clock ticked away, sometimes forcing coaches to burn timeouts before their team trotted onto the field.
“You’re always trying to hold your timeouts in your pocket when you need them,” Evans said.
“When you saw it was third down and our defense was on the field, the offense was already gathering before they even send their punt team out because you know you’re going to have to go out there and get the play going.”
Coach Tom O’Brien didn’t comment much on his preference between the two rulings. Instead, he said his teams were able to adjust to the rules accordingly.
“It’s fine. We did fine with the rules last year, and we’ll do fine with the rules this year,” O’Brien said.”I just hope they keep them this way from now on and quit experimenting.”
He did acknowledge that faster games should be a priority, but unlike his signal caller, he never thought his team’s chances were diminished as a result of last year’s possession rule.
“Anything to speed the game up is important. Those three-hours-and-35-minute games aren’t good for a lot of us,” O’Brien said.”I never felt disadvantaged. The rules are what they are, and you have to use them to your advantage.”
