The 40/25 Clock's Impact on Scoring

What's the scoop on scoring? With the number of plays reduced in 2008 by 6.22% — likely from the 40/25 second clock rules — scoring has decreased by 5.97%, according to Marty Couvillion of cfbstats.com.

The Football Rules Committee's tinkering with clock rules has had a yo-yo effect on scoring the past four seasons. In 2005, the average number of points in a game was 52.61. In 2006, the 3-2-5e rule drastically reduced plays and times of games. It also cut scoring to 47.53.

In 2007, 3-2-5e was abolished and scoring skyrocketed to 55.37. So did the number of plays and length of games.

That brings us to 2008, with scoring standing at 52.06, nearly matching the 2005 levels. An interesting note: The number of plays are down 6.21 from 2005, meaning teams are doing more with less in 2008.

Marty's weekly look at the average number of plays and time of a game for the past four seasons, plus the Week 9 numbers. Another note: Oklahoma was involved in the longest game of the week, which is the third time the Sooners have garnered such honors (weeks 1, 8 and 9):         

             G      Plays/G   Time/G
2005     717    140.71      3:21
2006     792    127.53      3:07
2007     792    143.43      3:23
2008     509    134.50      3:10
Wk 9      49    133.32      3:08

The longest games of Week 9:
Oklahoma-Kansas State: 3:43
Cincinnati-Connecticut: 3:37
Boise State-San Jose State: 3:35
Georgia-Louisiana State: 3:35
UCLA-California: 3:33
Baylor-Nebraska: 3:30
Rutgers-Pittsburgh: 3:27
Nevada-Hawaii: 3:23

The shortest games of Week 9:
New Mexico-Air Force: 2:39
Bowling Green-Northern Illinois: 2:42
Wyoming-Texas Christian: 2:43
Southern Methodist-Navy: 2:43
Rice-Tulane: 2:51
Auburn-West Virginia: 2:52
New Mexico State-Idaho: 2:53

Comments

[Sean]

As someone who was at that UConn/Cincy game, thank GOD for the new clock rules. Without them, that game might still be going on. The 2nd quarter took more than an hour with incompletion after incompletion.