Proposed NCAA Rules Changes

Rivals.com reports on Wednesday the NCAA Football Rules Committee has issued its recommendations for rule changes for the upcoming year. The new rules proposals must go before the NCAA's Playing Rules Oversight Panel before taking effect. Several of the rules changes are designed to speed up game at the request of TV networks. Below are the changes and rationales, if any.

The NFL style 40 second play clock will be instituted. The 25 second play clock will be used following injuries, timeouts and change of possessions. Also following an out of bounds play the game clock will begin when the ball is marked ready for play, except for in the final two minutes of each half.

Again via Rivals, the rationale: "The concern was from one conference to the next, there was enough variation in the length of time it took the referee to make the ball ready for play," said SEC coordinator of officials Rogers Redding, the NCAA's next secretary-rules editor. "Hopefully this will eliminate that and allow a more consistent time to get the ball snapped."

This will not create any sort of consistency at all. The supposed problem of different officiating crews marking the ball ready for play at differing times will not change at all. What will happen is that the slower an officiating crew spots the ball the less time the offense will have to snap it since the play clock will already have started running. And if consistency was the goal, why not have the coordinator of officials keep track of officiating crews and penalize them if they do not spot the ball in a timely manner? Wouldn't that be a more direct way to attack the problem?

Holding the officials accountable would more directly address the "problem," but it wouldn't speed up the game, which is an obvious consequence of the rules change. The longer play clock will create fewer plays in a game, which means a shorter game. Once again the NCAA Rules Committee is trying to fashion rules to ensure that less football is played. Whatever reason or motive you may assign to this consistency in screwing the fans and players out of more football (TV Networks' time slots and commercial revenue), the underlying question has to be why is the football rules committee composed of people who want to see less football?

The "Chop-Block" Rule will be clarified to make it easier for officials to call.

Explanation and rationale: "[The chop block rule] was a complicated rule from the standpoint of formations, or that it was illegal beyond the line of scrimmage but allowable behind the line. That's a very complicated rule and officials had to process that stuff. What we've simply said is a high-low combination block is going to be illegal. It's going to be clear to everybody. The official is not going to have to worry whether the person committing the block is from an adjacent position or behind or ahead of the line of scrimmage."

For the most part there is nothing wrong with this rule. What is terribly wrong with this rule is the rationale: officials had a hard time knowing when to enforce the rule. Are you fucking kidding me? We are changing the rule because those charged with enforcing it were getting confused? You know what else is tricky to officiate? holding, pass interference, illegal shifts and the post scrimmage kick rule. That being said, the rule will not have any noticeable negative effect on the game, so our ire is better directed elsewhere.

The 5 yard facemask penalty is eliminated.

Rationale: "That's not a dangerous play when a player grabs and releases (the face mask) with no impact on the runner and no impact on the safety of the player. That's a non-entity," Redding said. "We feel like the real issue is grasping, pulling, turning and twisting. That is retained, but we felt the incidental contact (penalty) was nothing and decided to get rid of it."

This isn't a bad idea. I have no real problem with this. A problem I may have is if touching of the facemask that used to be a 5 yard penalty gets flagged for a 15 yarder. But that would just be bad officiating, and you can't fix bad officiating with rules (unless you went with transparency and public accountability, but that's another issue altogether.)

If the ball is kicked out of bounds on a kickoff, the ball will be placed at the 40 instead of the 35.

Rationale: Last year the kickoff restraining line was moved back to the 30 from the 35. The out of bounds penalty wasn't moved 5 yards forward. This fixes that.

Was there a problem with teams kicking the ball out of bounds too much last year? No? Then why change the fucking rule?

For sideline warnings the team will be immediately penalized instead of the two warning system.

Rationale: See the Texas bowl game.

This rule is bound to be haphazardly enforced. The current rule, Rule 9-1-5-a, says that while the ball is in play coaches, substitutes and authorized attendants in a team area may not be between the sideline and coaching line. This means everyone on the sideline must be 12 feet away from the sideline. Think of any game you have ever seen. When has that ever been the case? Players and coaches are in constant violation of this rule. The warnings are used to let the players and coaches know when their violation is causing a problem with the game. This penalty could be called on literally every play of the game. If it is called, then the game will be ruined by constant off setting penalties. If it is not, then what is the point of having the rule?

Instant replay will be allowed on fumbles leading to immediate recoveries.

This is a good idea. Before only when the ruling was a fumble could the ruling be challenged that the player was down. It makes sense to allow a review of a play where the ball carrier is ruled down, but he in fact fumbled.

A coach who successfully challenges a play would retain the right to make one more challenge, for a maximum of two.

Good idea. If the coach was right, he should still have the opportunity to challenge later incorrect calls. By extension a coach should be able to challenge calls limitlessly until he gets one wrong. That way the coach wouldn't challenge everything because if he gets one wrong he doesn't get to challenge anymore, but he won't be forced to decide whether to challenge a wrong call or wait for a more important one.

A penalty would be added for so-called "horse-collar tackles."

This is the pussification of the game. Is there a problem with injuries resulting from this in the college game? Not really. There are times when this is the best and perhaps only way to tackle a ball carrier. This is a pussy shit rule that is not going to do anything other than penalize a play that has been legal for nearly a century and a half. The worst part is that this rule, like others, is designed to fix a problem that doesn't exist.

There would be an adjustment on the wording on helmet-to-helmet infractions to give officials more guidance in calling penalties for players making contact with the crown of their helmets or hitting defenseless opponents above the shoulders.

More pussification of football. As college football continues to become bigger and bigger, ratings will be tied to big name players playing, specifically quarterbacks. Casual fans may not tune in to see a backup if the starter is injured. Quick name Tim Tebow's backup. This rule is designed to protect quarterbacks from what is a natural part of the game. Allow these type rules to persist and hitting too hard will be illegal before too long.

Football is a brutal collision game. It's designed to be that way. Making rules to turn it into Y-league soccer will not help the game even if it does save a half a dozen concussions a year.

Other views of the rules changes:
Everday Should Be Saturday
Sunday Morning Quarterback
Black Shoe Diaries
Gamecock Central
The Good Ole Blog


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