The TV executives are unhappy, oooohhhhhhAt this time, the following are but proposals passed down from the NCAA Football Rules Committee. Approval is pending further scrutiny. The proposals include mention of 'horse collar' tackles, incidental facemasks and various timing changes. Let's review these categorically: The Good, The Bad, and The Whatever.
The Good
"abolishing the 5-yard incidental face-mask penalty"
FanHouse approved. Incidental facemask grabs happen all the time and players tend to play through them. So long as there's no twisting or dangerous grabbing, let the incident go and put that flag away.
Any block below the waist when a player already is engaged with another blocker automatically is a chop block penalty.
K.I.S.S. ruled the day here. Says SEC Coordinator of Officiating Rogers Redding:
"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."A penalty would be added for so-called "horse-collar tackles."
I'm torn between good and bad here. The horse-collar tackle is a dangerous play, but it's also more prevalent in the college game as more plays are made to the outside making backside tackles something of a regular occurrence. The ruling favors offenses but I'm not sure it will actually reduce this kind of desperate tackle.
The Bad
As for sideline warnings, the new rule would allow a team to be immediately penalized for crowding the sideline
This seems silly. We're talking about college football here, a game driven by emotion in the stands, on the sidelines and on the field. The sidelines should be chaotic and disorganized pits of emotion and energy. Officials simply need to be more enthusiastic about giving that first warning. Once that cat is out of the bag then yeah, penalize as they see fit. The first mistake should be met with a fair, public warning before handing out penalties.
Previously, the game clock stopped when a runner went out of bounds and didn't re-start until the next snap. The proposed change will make an out-of-bounds play just like a first down, after which the clock is started when the official marks the ball ready for play.
This is a concession to TV executives. I should probably be happy that no proposals were made this year to affect the actual number of plays. However, the beauty of college football is that it isn't so clean, so regimented like the NFL. Some games can be done well under three hours, some seem to take forever. It's a bit like baseball in that regard.
The game's fans are presumably watching because they enjoy the experience, which should override any concerns about how long each game takes. I say the longer the game, the better. Saturday is about football, I'm in no hurry to see it end.
The Whatever
A coach who successfully challenges a play would retain the right to make one more challenge, for a maximum of two
Maybe I'm overthinking, but this seems like an admission that the officiating in college football is not up to snuff. If so, measures should be taken to improve the on-field officiating. They could start by standardizing the education of officials throughout the conferences. The proposed cross-conference officiating teams is a great idea. Anything to improve the quality of officiating would greatly improve trust between fans and officials and return scrutiny to on-field play instead of officiating.
giving the receiving team the option to taking possession at the 40-yard line after an out-of-bounds kickoff
TBD. I like kick returns, they're exciting, but having the ball at the 40 is hard to pass up for most coaches. I doubt this will actually reduce the number of out-of-bounds kickoffs. Remember that college kickers are notoriously inaccurate. It's not like they're really thinking to themselves as they kick the ball off "hey, let's send this sucker out of bounds, coach'll love it". It just happens unless you've got one of those rare, consistent kickers.
What it will do is make it less likely a coach opts to return a kick even if he has a dangerous returnman if he can take the ball at the 40. This speeds up the game (bad), but may also lead to more scoring and actual possessions (good). Hmm ...
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Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 1)
1. I don't understand why there is a limit on successful challenges. If a coach challenges and it turns out the call was wrong, then the coach should be able to challenge again and again until HE'S wrong.
Posted at 3:28PM on Feb 14th 2008 by tdubya86
2. Eliminating the incidental facemask is a HORRIBLE idea! It makes facemask penalties a pure judgement call, and it allows players to more brazenly grab in the area.
So much for promoting the safety of the players.
Posted at 3:45PM on Feb 14th 2008 by August West
3. Although removing penalties for an incidental face mask may sound easy, where do you draw the line? Every time you give the referee discretion, you are creating a greater risk of allowing biased judgments to alter the game.
Posted at 4:39PM on Feb 14th 2008 by Martin
4. Horse collar tackles: The rule is terrible. Yes, the tackle is dangerous for the runner. Pros have this rule. In a single weekend, I saw sixteen of these offenses. Four were in a single game played by Dallas. Only Roy Williams was flagged for the offense.
Challenges: Officiating quality is declining. You used to be able to watch a weekend of college and pro games and see no obvious officiating errors. The pros seem to have four or five critical ones in every game and some college officiating teams can't seem to get anything right.
Posted at 10:09PM on Feb 14th 2008 by James
5. Awwww, man. The headline for this article had me for a second. I actually thought they were finally going to add a playoff system. D-oh, what was I thinking? Of course money is more important than a legitimate championship...
Posted at 11:05PM on Feb 14th 2008 by Drolz
6. 16 horse collars, what a crock. As soon as the players were pentalized they stopped. Maybe one or 2 but 16? No freakin way. The rule that should be in place is the celebration rule. These guys in college jump up and down like they just won the game and in most cases their team is losing. But as long as you have old men watching quicker, faster athletes the game will not be called correct either way. Its just to quick for most human ref's that are over 50. Its worse in college BB.
Posted at 6:33AM on Feb 15th 2008 by G. Hale
7. A celebration penalty would be great. I am all for letting the kids celebrate after a big play and to allow even a little more after a score. But when the defensive player ,after a sack for instance, goes farther away from his huddle to separate himself from the other players to celebrate behind the offense, it is to much. At this point the player is not celebrating - - he is performing for the crowd.
Posted at 9:24AM on Feb 15th 2008 by chris
8. tdubya86 (#1), I agree.
Posted at 1:27PM on Feb 15th 2008 by Zick
9. I like the idea of the horsecollar rule and I especially like the rule about if your challenge does get reversed, you don't lose a challenge. That rule is common sense that should have been in there since the challenge rule was first implemented.
Posted at 7:34PM on Feb 15th 2008 by Tanning Lotion
10. Here's a rule change, if you cannot make sensible rule changes don't make them at all. When are they going to stop tweaking the college game to make it better for the fans? I like it the way it is, so just leave it alone!!
Posted at 2:03PM on Feb 26th 2008 by Bandy