The 40/25 Clock Rules Could Be Here to Stay

There will be no Hail Mary for fans seeking more football in 2008. The only hope now is that coaches raise a stink and the Football Rules Committee turns back the clock in the offseason and finds a way to restore plays lost under the 40/25 clock rules.

Although 13 minutes have been shaved from the length of the average game, 9.06 plays have been lost, according to data compiled by Marty Couvillion of cfbstats.com.

Only Urban Meyer, who called the 40/25 rule "awful" after his team was limited to 46 competitive plays in a victory at Tennessee, has raised a stink. Given the lack of protest from the rest of the coaching fraternity, there is a strong possibility that the 40/25 rules could be here to stay. That would swing open the doors for more commercialization and the likelihood that in two or three years the length of games will once again be pushing the 3:20 mark.

Take notice of what's happening. Long commercial breaks often suck the energy out of the stadium. For fans sitting at home, commercials are now being inserted after kickoffs, following the NFL blueprint.

Marty's weekly look at the average number of plays and time of a game for the past four seasons, plus the Week 6 numbers:         

             G      Plays/G   Time/G
2005     717    140.71      3:21
2006     792    127.53      3:07
2007     792    143.43      3:23
2008     356    134.37      3:10
Wk 6      53    134.23      3:12

The longest games of Week 6:
Florida State-Miami: 3:50
Rice-Tulsa: 3:38
Akron-Kent State: 3:38
Pittsburgh-South Florida: 3:35
Memphis-Alabama Birmingham: 3:33
Texas Tech-Kansas State: 3:33
Kentucky-Alabama: 3:33

The shortest games of Week 6:
Alcorn State-New Mexico State: 2:39
Ball State-Toledo: 2:46
Wyoming-New Mexico: 2:49
Penn State-Purdue: 2:49
Washington-Arizona: 2:53
Western Kentucky-Virginia Tech: 2:55
Ohio State-Wisconsin: 2:55
Maryland-Virginia: 2:55

Comments

[Sean]

College football is nowhere near the soul-sucking experience that the NFL has become due to timeouts. I've noticed that college football, at least at the UConn games I've attended, has done a good job of limiting commercials to during timeouts, injuries or instant replays, where there is a break in the action anyway.

I will say, after attending the Notre Dame game Saturday, that it was much worse and lots of people were pointing to NBC as the reason with far more TV timeouts in the middle of game action, like after a change of possession.