With the LSU volleyball team down, 20-16, in the fourth set of its 3-1 victory Monday night against Tennessee, LSU coach Fran Flory called a timeout to get her team composed.”I said, ‘We need nine points to win the match. That’s all we need,'” Flory said. “Tennessee still made their run, but we never let them get a two-point run.”Just two seasons ago, that nine points would have been 14, but a rule change implemented by the NCAA after the 2007 season took the first four sets from 30 points down to 25 points and kept the “if necessary” fifth set at 15 points.”It affects every match because 25 points gets on you very fast,” Flory said. “It’s unforgiving. There’s not as big of an opportunity to come back because one play after 20, if you make one or two crucial plays and the other team gives you one, then you are going to win.”LSU senior setter Sam Dabbs said she has seen a change in the way the game is played, especially in the Tennessee match, because of the rule changes. She said she prefers the 25-point sets.”In the game of volleyball, you try to score in increments of three to five points,” Dabbs said. “After two errors made on your side, you want to come back harder and break the momentum of two points in a row given away, so those five points are huge.”The rule change also dramatically changed the length of matches. Through 20 matches in 2007, LSU’s matches averaged one hour, 59 minutes, while through 20 matches this season, the average time has been just shy of one hour, 44 minutes.But rule changes are nothing new in collegiate volleyball.In 2001, the first rule change occurred, which took the scoring from 15 in each set with points only coming off the serve (also called “sideout serving”) to rally scoring and 30 points in the first four sets and 15 in the final set. The current scoring format was adopted in 2008.One program the newest rule change may have hit the hardest is Florida, the 18-time defending Southeastern Conference champion. The Gators have already fallen from the conference lead this year with a pair of conference losses (one to Kentucky and one to LSU), and it took them until the last match of last season to win the conference crown in 2008, the longest time since their streak began.The shorter matches give the underdog a better opportunity to beat a better team, said Florida volleyball coach Mary Wise in an Oct. 5 news conference.”That’s why you are seeing matches with wins and losses that you would not see in the olden days,” said Wise, who arrived at Florida in 1991. “The 30 points kept the separation, but now at 25, one error is magnified.”However, not all coaches feel the same way as Flory and Wise.Georgia coach Joel McCartney said there may be more of a sense of urgency to not make mistakes with the rule change but doesn’t think it has had a dramatic impact on how the game is played.”I don’t think it’s transitioned into anything that’s changed the game too significantly,” McCartney said. “As coaches, we are probably all training the same way. We may change some of the scoring mechanisms of our competitive drills in practice, but outside of that, it’s not much of a change.”—-Contact Andy Schwehm at [email protected]