College Football Executives Considering Four Changes to Shorten Games

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dlw4gophers said:
In favorer of the 1st idea, not the second
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I get what you're saying, but man, getting tired of seeing the rules go more like the NFL. College used to have a great replay system, now it's a copy of the crap the NFL does. What's next, 2 feet in bounds for a completed pass? Maybe toss in a two-minute warning?
 

I could live with either as long as the clock stops in the final two minutes of a half on both rules.
Rare for the Gophers but one of the most exciting parts of football is watching a team go 70 yards for a game winning touchdown or field goal in under a minute, Be dumb to change the rules and eliminate the biggest adrenaline rush of football games.
 

As for running the clock after incomplete passes, I'm fine with that, as the incomplete pass doesn't slow the game down the way it probably used to. I mean, back in the day some ball boy probably had to track the sucker down and run it back to the ref. Now they have the ball ready for play just as soon as if the previous play was a run, so what's the point of stopping except to give the trailing team more plays?
 


60's Guy said:
I could live with either as long as the clock stops in the final two minutes of a half on both rules.
Rare for the Gophers but one of the most exciting parts of football is watching a team go 70 yards for a game winning touchdown or field goal in under a minute, Be dumb to change the rules and eliminate the biggest adrenaline rush of football games.
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I disagree. If you kept the clock running it would be more exciting, not less. I used to find the play your describing as exciting, back when Elway was doing it. Now, they barely let you cover WRs anymore, so you see more and more of these drives succeeding, which takes away the excitement. It's now like, "let's just let them score so we can have the ball last" type mentality if you're a fan, since you know it's highly unlikely your defense will stop them.
 

GopherTheJugular said:
I get what you're saying, but man, getting tired of seeing the rules go more like the NFL. College used to have a great replay system, now it's a copy of the crap the NFL does. What's next, 2 feet in bounds for a completed pass? Maybe toss in a two-minute warning?
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Ya, I didn't know it was broken. "Eliminating plays for safety" is such a crock.
You got 110 guys on a team that would like to play. Eliminate 25 - 30 plays from the present game and the philosophy/strategy to play your best 25-30 guys is going to become prevalent. Depth and team morale are going to suffer.
 

GopherTheJugular said:
I disagree. If you kept the clock running it would be more exciting, not less. I used to find the play your describing as exciting, back when Elway was doing it. Now, they barely let you cover WRs anymore, so you see more and more of these drives succeeding, which takes away the excitement. It's now like, "let's just let them score so we can have the ball last" type mentality if you're a fan, since you know it's highly unlikely your defense will stop them.
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That's only because of poor coaching. They couldn't score all day on your defense but now you are going to your "prevent defense" and give them--literally give them first downs so they don't score in one play but guarantee they score in 5 or 7 plays. That's the problem with what you describe....coaching decisions.
 




60's Guy said:
That's only because of poor coaching. They couldn't score all day on your defense but now you are going to your "prevent defense" and give them--literally give them first downs so they don't score in one play but guarantee they score in 5 or 7 plays. That's the problem with what you describe....coaching decisions.
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I disagree again. Yes, some teams will still do the prevent defense, which doesn't work. But Illinois was NOT in prevent against Michigan, for example. The refs are being told to let the offense go down the field. It's why you see flags on plays late in the 4th quarter that weren't flagged all game long.

Even last year Michigan, after getting a freebie by the refs a week earlier against Illinois, got the other end of the reffing when playing tOSU. They strip-sacked Stroud and it was a bang-bang fumble, but yet they claimed a ref had ruled "forward progress was stopped" even though Stroud was spinning and trying to get away. The refs were doing everything they could to keep the late 4th quarter OSU drive going.
 

hello-world said:
They can't fix game times with changes to the game. There are a few components to college football game times
  • Game clock running (~60 minutes)
    • Play time ~15 minutes
    • Time between plays ~45 minutes
  • Game clock not running (~120 minutes)
    • Dead clock (e.g., incomplete passes, etc.) ~15 minutes
    • Half-time ~15 minutes (usually includes ~10 minutes of commercials)
    • Other commercials ~60 minutes
    • Other broadcast nonsense ~30 minutes
If they are having trouble getting the game to finish in other than three hours, then the place where time needs to be cut is obvious. Cutting into dead clock time just takes away from the actual football game even more.
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We have a winner.

The problem isn't that the 'football stuff' takes too long. The problem is too many commercials and TV timeouts. It is because of greed.

Games haven't gotten longer — not the football part. There are simply more (and more, and more, and more) commercials. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
 


RememberMurray said:
We have a winner.

The problem isn't that the 'football stuff' takes too long. The problem is too many commercials and TV timeouts. It is because of greed.

Games haven't gotten longer — not the football part. There are simply more (and more, and more, and more) commercials. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
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hello-world must have deleted the post. As the article states, commercials/broadcasting of games is not the issue ..."Television commercials don’t impact game time significantly. From 2018-2020, games not televised finished only about two minutes sooner than those televised."

I would be fine with either clock running proposals, as long as the clock starts with placement of the ball. Heck, they could even add another 30 second T/O for each team and still shorten the game. As one poster already pointed out, shorten halftime from 20 to 15 or 12 minutes.
 





minnyrules11 said:
Make halftime 15 minutes instead of 20. Could go 12 like nfl but probably not enough time for the band.
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This will be heresy to some, but eliminating the marching band performance would solve the problem.
 


Clock keeps running after an incomplete pass. If you send down four receivers, one or two deep. They are going to have to hustle back to get back to the line of scrimmage. Could possibly be the end of the game with 15 seconds or so left and incomplete.
 

GopherTheJugular said:
I get what you're saying, but man, getting tired of seeing the rules go more like the NFL. College used to have a great replay system, now it's a copy of the crap the NFL does. What's next, 2 feet in bounds for a completed pass? Maybe toss in a two-minute warning?
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Replay has kind of gone the opposite. Reviewing every scoring play and “expedited” review.

2023 nfl review looks closer to 2015 college review than 2015 nfl reviews
 

Murray is correct.
It is not the current rules of stoppage that prolong the game it is the duration and frequency of commercials that not only prolong the games but interrupt the flow of the game.
Why not pack the commercials in the time between quarters and at halftime and during injury time-outs?
That seems to work for soccer.
 

disco said:
This will be heresy to some, but eliminating the marching band performance would solve the problem.
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They perform in the tailgate lots, team walk up, national anthem, during the game and well I don’t get in until a few minutes before game that the band probably does pregame on field stuff. Go play battle hymn of republic and rotating m and be done with it.
 

TV timeouts are by far the biggest thing slowing down the game and any other proposal is a distraction from the real issue. I get why those won't go away but shaving off a few minutes here and there while leaving the thing that wastes an hour of the game doesn't solve the problem.
 

They do want people at the games, amirite? No clock stoppage you could miss a whole quarter going for concessions or waiting in line at the restroom. I doubt people would like that.
If people are there longer, you sell more stuff, food and drinks.
At home watching on TV...the length of the game is a non factor for the viewer. Longer time, more commercials. Who says there's a problem?
It is very annoying when replay takes minutes...even worse when you don't agree with their conclusion.
Fix that.
 

PMWinSTP said:
hello-world must have deleted the post. As the article states, commercials/broadcasting of games is not the issue ..."Television commercials don’t impact game time significantly. From 2018-2020, games not televised finished only about two minutes sooner than those televised."

I would be fine with either clock running proposals, as long as the clock starts with placement of the ball. Heck, they could even add another 30 second T/O for each team and still shorten the game. As one poster already pointed out, shorten halftime from 20 to 15 or 12 minutes.
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The article does indeed claim that commercials don't make the games significantly longer.

It is interesting that the article claims that TV games run "only" two minutes longer than non-televised games, an increase the author deems insignificant, and at the same time points to a five-minute increase in game duration from 2018 to 2022 as though five minutes is indeed quite significant. I'd point out that without the commercials you would cut that 5-minute increase almost in half without changing the football part of the game at all.

I guess it all depends on a person's definition of "significant".
 


RememberMurray said:
Indeed.

It would be interesting to see how the average running time of Gopher football games under Fleck compares to the national averages.
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would imagine it is quite a bit lower, on average, given there are significantly less plays in it which means less stoppages of the clock (due to less changes of possession, points scored, kickoffs, etc.)
 

TV has taken over college football, every aspect. Conference realignment and any new playoff system will eventually be put in place exactly as TV dictates.

Any plans to shorten run times for games will be implemented according to profit motives. I take any and all claims that commercials don't significantly lengthen the games with a huge grain of salt.
 

This will be wildly unpopular and I totally expect to get ripped on but the average college game was 3 hours 22 minutes in 2022 and the average NFL game was 3 hours 10 minutes.

Easy solution, shorten halftime. College halftimes go on forever!
 

RememberMurray said:
TV has taken over college football, every aspect. Conference realignment and any new playoff system will eventually be put in place exactly as TV dictates.

Any plans to shorten run times for games will be implemented according to profit motives. I take any and all claims that commercials don't significantly lengthen the games with a huge grain of salt.
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OK, so what parts of the article do you believe?
 

PMWinSTP said:
hello-world must have deleted the post. As the article states, commercials/broadcasting of games is not the issue ..."Television commercials don’t impact game time significantly. From 2018-2020, games not televised finished only about two minutes sooner than those televised."
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What level of competition do you have to be at to not be televised, and is it really a fair comparison to compare those games to P5 games? Would schools whose games aren't televised even have a marching band?
 

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