August 15, 2008
Albuquerque Journal
NCAA's Tinkering Ruins Good Thing
By Rick Wright Of the JournalAmerican children are born with a wide spectrum of fundamental sports knowledge. It's a DNA thing.
Big score beats little score, unless we're talking golf or cross country. The pitcher's mound is 60 feet, 6 inches from home plate.
And, in football, the game clock stops after a ball carrier or receiver goes out of bounds. Said game clock does not resume until the ball is snapped on the next play. OK? I know that. You know that. My 3-year-old Shetland sheepdog knows that.
Now, the NCAA football rules committee is telling us the game clock doesn't stop after an out-of-bounds play. Well, it does, but only until the referee spots the ball and signals time back in.
Thus, whatever game NCAA-member schools will be playing this fall on 100-yard fields with 10-yard end zones, it won't be football — because, in football, the clock stops after an out-of-bounds play until the next snap.
Lobos football coach Rocky Long, who rightfully disapproves, said he suspects this change is all about television. That's sort of like suspecting those Chinese gymnasts aren't really 16 years old.
Of course it's about television. The TV folks won't be happy until no college game lasts longer than three hours. Less than three hours? Even better for TV; that gives all those talking heads more time to talk.
On Thursday, Brigham Young coach Bronco Mendenhall canceled the Cougars' morning practice and took the team to watch “The Dark Knight.” The movie's running time is 2 hours, 30 minutes.
Mendenhall told the Salt Lake Tribune he wanted to give his players a break from the rigors of preseason workouts. Perhaps, in reality, he wanted to give them an idea of how long a college game will last under the new rules.
My complaint, though, isn't so much about the number of minutes or the number of plays. It's about a fundamental change in the rules of football, one that shouldn't be dictated by television.
There's nothing wrong with speeding up the game, even if it costs a few plays. The basic rules change involved here is the switch from a 25-second play clock, starting when the ball is spotted for the next play, to a 40-second play clock, starting when the previous play is whistled dead. That's what the NFL does, and it's fine.
But, in restarting the clock after out-of-bounds plays, the NCAA is going the NFL one better — or one worse.
Proponents of the change would note that out-of-bounds plays will revert to the old rule in the final two minutes of each half. The two-minute drill, they would suggest, is alive and well.
I would point out that so-called two-minute drills, depending on game situations, often begin long before the two-minute mark. If you're down more than two scores with four minutes left, the sidelines are your friend. Do you wait until two minutes are left to start using them? No.
I looked long and hard on the Internet for examples of great college football comebacks that might not have happened if the game clock hadn't stopped after out-of-bounds plays. Game summaries, even ones that include play-by-play information, aren't that specific.
But, in looking at Michigan State's historic comeback victory over Northwestern in 2006, the Spartans overcame a 38-3 third-quarter deficit by running 44 plays in 24 1/2 minutes.
I'm guessing that MSU quarterback Drew Stanton, coached by then-Spartans and now-UNM offensive coordinator Dave Baldwin, used the sideline a few times.
The game lasted 3 hours, 19 minutes.
Only Northwestern fans thought that was too long.