Holy hoodwink, Batman! Remember me?From the venerable Sunday Morning Quarterback:
Make no mistake: fifteen extra seconds on the play clock is a dramatic, terrible change, and will fail miserably at its attempt to maintain plays and scoring at 2007 levels. Lengthening the play clock produces less plays, and therefore less scoring ...This is bad for college football. I stand with EDSBS, The Wizard of Odds, Get the Picture and others in opposing this specific piece of legislation that takes away from the college football experience instead of adding to it.
...a conservative estimate - the number drops to 120 plays, 60 per team, a loss of something like three full possessions every game. If it allows enough of a slow down to average 35 seconds per play, the average drops to about 51 plays per team, almost a full 30 percent decline.
That's a staggering decline in actual football in favor of standing around (and commercials, which of course will not be cut), and also in favor of taking knees: 15 more seconds of standing around between every play means 45 extra seconds per three-down series if the clock is running, extending the amount of time that can reasonably be run off by kneel-downs from a little over a minute to a full two minutes. The committee should be devising rules that encourage last-second drama, not choke it out of existence
For the more active citizens among you, please take the following message from EDSBS to heart:
Michael Clark is the committee head. Here's his email address: mclark@bridgewater.edu. Oh, and here's his office number: 540-828-5406. Give him a call, write him and email, and tell him how hard this rule sucks, and will suck until it fails and is revoked next year.
Previously at FanHouse
Rule Changes Proposed for College Football




















Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-18-2008 @ 10:49AM
Martin said...
Generally, the more plays that take place in a game, the better chance for the superior team to prevail. Fewer plays in a game will lead to more upsets. Maybe that's their goal.
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2-18-2008 @ 11:13AM
Hugo Chavez said...
Jesush H Christ on a popsicle stick! Why not wait to see how it actually pans out before having a frickin hissy fit over it?
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2-18-2008 @ 11:38AM
Joe said...
I wrote him and this is what he said back,
"The 40-25 clock should add about 5 plays based on pace of play. This should offset the live ball-carrier out of bounds which on average happens about 12 times a game. When this happens late in the final 2 minutes there is no impact. Should be a push, with same amount of plays in less time that should play to the needs of BCS< Administrators and TV people. MC"
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2-18-2008 @ 11:53AM
Brian said...
Thanks Joe.
Hmm ... I truly hope that if the rule goes through, it works out and the number of plays remains constant. However, my alarm is raised given what happened with 3-2-5-e. College football loses the more it tries to impersonate the NFL, anyway.
Those who have authority within the game need to be shepherds more than pimps. It's understandable to do some things that are in the interest of the TV guys, but they need to nibble around the edges as the game loses its way the more we get away from what makes the game unique like longer games and clock stoppages on first down, etc.
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2-19-2008 @ 10:58AM
Anthony Rossi said...
Calm down. The average time between plays right now runs 35-37 seconds. The only thing that the new rule will do is get the players to hustle a bit getting back to the huddle. Get your facts straight before you begin to act like you know something about football.
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