Time, Plays and Points All on the Rise

Anybody complaining about the length of the Texas-Texas Tech game? It was the third-longest game of Week 10, according to Marty Couvillion of cfbstats.com.

The 3:38 contest at Lubbock, regarded at the most entertaining game thus far in 2008, helped drive up the numbers in Week 10, including the all-important average number of plays a game. It was 135.54, second only to Week 7's 136.35.

Week 10 also had the season's highest time per game (3:15) and points per game (56.34).

Marty's weekly look at the average number of plays and time of a game for the past four seasons, plus the Week 10 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     509    134.62      3:11
Wk 10     50    135.54      3:15

The longest games of Week 10:
Pittsburgh-Notre Dame: 4:01
North Texas-Western Kentucky: 3:46
Texas-Texas Tech: 3:38
Temple-Navy: 3:36
Oregon-California: 3:35
Wisconsin-Michigan State: 3:34
Rice-Texas El Paso: 3:30
Tulsa-Arkansas: 3:30

The shortest games of Week 10:
Arkansas State-Alabama: 2:42
San Jose State-Idaho: 2:52
Washington-USC: 2:53
Tulane-Louisiana State: 2:53
Alabama Birmingham-Southern Mississippi: 2:54
Kent State-Bowling Green: 2:57
Washington State-Stanford: 2:57