— By Bill Cornwell
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — In recent years, NCAA rule makers have followed the lead of the National Football League in looking for ways to improve the flow of college football games.
More of those changes will be featured across the college game when the 2023 season begins in the coming weeks.
Sun Belt Conference Coordinator of Football Officials John McDaid went over the latest rule changes at last week’s league media preview in New Orleans.
McDaid, who also serves as SEC Coordinator of Football Officials under a cooperative agreement between the two leagues, says the rules committee kept the adjustments to a minimum, although they could have a big impact on the length of games.
Beginning this season, the clock will not stop when a team picks up a first down inbounds except in the final 2 minutes of each half. The rules committee hopes this will put a dent into the duration of games, which went an average of 3 hours and 21 minutes last fall among FBS schools.
Perhaps of more importance, it reduces the amount of plays.
“When I listen to the schools, the chancellors and presidents, the athletic directors, when I listen to the teams and our fans and our coaches, 3:21 a game’s not bad,” McDaid said. “What they’re concerned about, and what we’re concerned about, is the average number of plays in those games. Three hour and 45-minute games are what we don’t want.”
Other new regulations that could affect game times this year are the prohibition of teams calling back-to-back timeouts in the same dead-ball situation and halting untimed downs at the end of the first and third quarters due to a defensive penalty. Untimed downs in penalty situations at the end of each half will continue.
McDaid says the Sun Belt and all other FBS conferences are seeing a drop in the number of targeting calls after tougher targeting rules were implemented in recent years.
Sun Belt games featured an average of 14.1 penalties per game and targeting calls were only a small portion of those calls.
“We had a 35 percent reduction in targeting per game across the FBS from 2020 to 2021, and a 25 percent reduction from 2021 to 2022,” McDaid said. “Overall, there was a 68 percent reduction in targeting per game in just a two-year span.
“You ask me what’s the explanation for that? To me it’s clear that the behavior of the athletes has changed. They understand what we don’t want in the game, and they’re doing the things to get the head and neck out of collisions in the game.”
Marshall opens fall football practice Wednesday at Joan C. Edwards Stadium.