GO LIVE, PART TWO: NEW RULES SUCK.
by Orson on Jul 31, 2006 10:39 AM EDT
17 comments
Why speed up college games? Saturdays exist in an idyllic, clock-free sphere for college fans: waking up late, having a drink at an hour usually reserved for people with the DTs, and watching one epic game bleed into another over lackadaisically arranged hours in front of the tv or at the tailgate. Times not particularly relevant on a day measured more by the number of beer bottles on the coffee table than by the inconveniences of the clock.
Yet rule gremlinspressured by television networks and their tight schedules and conference financial interestsran amok this offseason in the rulebook in an attempt to speed up game. To wit:
For the first time in college football history, the game clock will start at the referees ready-for-play signal not at the snap following a change of possession. Officials estimate that could reduce the number of plays in a game by a dozen or more.
The other change: The clock will start on the kickoff itself instead of when a player from the receiving team first touches the ball.
Reducing plays and possessions nah, that wont affect the game. At. All. Unless youre playing the game, watching it, or officiating it. Everyone else will be fine, though, and dont panic: youll see the Yella Wood ads you crave in triplicate hourly.
Spurriers suggesting underdogs just earned an edge in reducing the number of possessions. Pete Carroll hates it period. Mike Rileys concerned about the odd sight of ending a game with an empty field. The rules have received universal notice across conference media days, and with an almost universal verdict: theyre total, utter crap.
Speeding up the game shouldnt fall on the shoulders of officials or players. It should fall with advertisers, who should go live and uninterrupted for the whole course of a game with a single break at the quarters or the half. It works magic for soccer, and rather than being subjected to the torture of watching the same ATV ad fifteen timesWOOOOO!!!we could see the Yamaha Logo for a languid fifteen to thirty minutes posted up in the upper right hand of the screen accompanied by periodic mentions by the announcers. Hell, put two logos on the screen if you like, so long as they dont block out the play on the field.
10-20 plays a game=fifteen more viewings of this.
Better yet, sponsor individual players and coaches when you show their names. Since theyre effectively chattel of the NCAA, why not put them on the players names when you introduce them. Chris Leak, sponsored by Turtle Wax. Willie Williams, sponsored by Lil Waynes new joint, Shot Ya N Da Neck Biotch. Paul Pozlusny, brought to you by Pain: Hurting the Human Species for 500,000 years.
The answer to speeding up games comes in speeding up the ads, not the game itself. But itll take a couple of public, embarrassing pants-crapping anticlimaxes at the end of big games to illustrate just what the rule changes entail. Imagine if the OSU/Texas game ends with an empty field after a see-saw thriller? Or the complaints from major programs if the November Surprise games they usually pull out at the last second become crippling losses when they lose 10-15 snaps a game? The rules could do marginal wonders for parity, but parity has rarely seemed to be a priority of the CFB Brahmins pulling the strings on rules flubbing like this. The rules dont innovate; if anything, they point to a failure of imagination on the part of advertisers and the rules committee. Given that this comes from the same people who find the exuberance of youthful celebration penalty-worthy, there's little to get shockedified in that respect.
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Why does this fall on the advertisers?
The average NFL game actually features MORE television timeouts than the average college football game, but yet the inaccurate perception that the length of college football games is a TV-driven problem still reigns supreme.
by Bruce Ciskie on Jul 31, 2006 10:47 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
500,000 years of pain? i don’t see how that is possible, as the earth is only 4000 years old. you know, i was going to donate some money, but now it seems that you are just a bunch of satanists.
by adam on Jul 31, 2006 10:48 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
10-20 fewer plays. Thank God. Coach Shula won’t have a chance to screw those up.
by Cool Hand Mike on Jul 31, 2006 10:49 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Hell yeah Adam. I bet they believe dinosaur bones are real too.
by Cool Hand Mike on Jul 31, 2006 10:51 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
YEAH! if dinosaurs went extinct, then why do we have ALLIGATORS?
by adam on Jul 31, 2006 10:54 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
For the same general reason (if it ain’t broke…) and for many, many reasons of its own, I encourage everyone to spread the gospel of SCRAPPING INSTANT REPLAY in all of its ESPN/Advertiser/Sportstainment-driven forms.
To paraphrase the silver surfer, what the NCAA has done, the NCAA can undo.
by ohiodawg on Jul 31, 2006 10:56 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Then if this does not fall on television, Bruce—we’re not suggesting that it falls on advertisers—how do you get to the NFL model, if that’s what you’re aiming for?
by Orson Swindle on Jul 31, 2006 11:15 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Then if this does not fall on television, Brucewere not suggesting that it falls on advertisershow do you get to the NFL model, if thats what youre aiming for?
You keep the clock running when the officials are moving the chains on first downs and you limit the amount of time available for video replay. The first one fundamentally changes the game, and I’m not wild about it. The second is just common sense.
But I tend to also be from the “stop having a touchdown – TV timeout – kickoff – TV timeout sequence” school of thought.
We’ve all sat in the stands and felt the life drain out of a rowdy crowd when there’s one play in six minutes. It’s not like the nice folks at home are really gaining anything by watchign the ATV spot, stupid Applebee’s commercial, and TWINS! sequence one more time.
The sweaty dancing girl in the Old Spice commercial is okay to stay, however.
by Tom on Jul 31, 2006 11:31 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
—>Then if this does not fall on television, Brucewere not suggesting that it falls on advertisershow do you get to the NFL model, if thats what youre aiming for?
Orson, I don’t know that we need to get to the NFL model, which is far from perfect.
But the game clock needs to run more often than it does in college football, because four-hour games are going to get old in a hurry.
To illustrate what I’m talking about with TV not being a problem, there are eight scheduled media timeouts in each half of a college football game, for a total of 16. The NFL has 23 scheduled media timeouts during regulation.
These totals do not count timeouts taken that do not affect the flow of the game (i.e. a network running a :30 or :60 break during a timeout).
by Bruce Ciskie on Jul 31, 2006 11:36 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Hey TV douschebag, how about we skip the 5 minutes of comercials after a punt or a kickoff?
Why not make each quarter 6 minutes long. Works for me in my NCAA2007, and I still managed to put 56 points in Tennessee….. using ARMY.
Here’s an idea, compliments of George Carlin. No player substitutions. Leave the injured on the battlefield. I wonder how well Tommy Frazier runs the option when he has to hurdle one of his running backs, and both offensive tackles while the opposing team is at full strength.
by Rome on Jul 31, 2006 11:57 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
There’s more:
kicking tees down from two to one inch
halftime down to 20 minutes
instant replay
by Boston Dan on Jul 31, 2006 12:34 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
The sweaty dancing girl in the Old Spice commercial is okay to stay, however.
Correction, Tom: I believe she “glistens”…not sweats.
by Aerobab on Jul 31, 2006 1:01 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
What the hell is the problem with long games anyway. If two big games coincidentaly overlap espn/abc usually does a good job of brodcasting kickoff for one game on espn or espn2 while the first game is in running long; this extinguishes the need for a more strict daytime game schedule.
As for primetime… Are they worried the games will cut into the local news (Carl Monday grilling helpless gas station attendants as to why it costs three bucks for a gallon of gas as if the minimum wage employee has anything to do with the pricing scheme of Exxon and, of course, posting up at public libraries…) I mean what else is going to be televised on Saturday that would worry the stations about game length?
I mean ads suck but we’re all used to them. If it means so much , just add more of them during longer TV timeouts. Don’t shorten the length of the actual game by altering the rules!
by Steve on Jul 31, 2006 1:06 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Steve,
I suspect the answer has something to do with the desire to run more ads in the same, or possibly shorter amount of time. ie lets say the current model has games that are 3.5 hours long with 30 minutes of commercial time. If you can squeeze that down to 3 hours with 45 minutes of commercials, people in advertising boardrooms will make bank.
by Hokie Andrew on Jul 31, 2006 1:33 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
All of these rule changes are bs.
Anything that tends to make CF look more like the NFL is bad. Definitionally.
by ohiodawg on Jul 31, 2006 2:13 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Let’s find a way to complain to the NCAA or whoever made this rule change. Then, lets get everybody (since everybody knows this is a stupid rule change) to continually call/email or whatever and give them hell about this crappy rule. We can see if we can have an affect and maybe they will change the rule back for next year.
by me on Sep 4, 2006 12:53 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
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