Rule Changes 2006

I guess the biggest change is the starting of the game clock from the moment the referee spots the ball instead of when the ball is snapped. I know the Pac-10 coaches hate this rule change. It's a disadvantage if you are the trailing team, but I guess from a fan standpoint, it's good if your team is ahead since it gives the trailing team less time to organize plays. They say this will shorten the game by 5 minutes. I don't like this rule change because this is totally done for television and not out of a necessity. 5 minutes. Big whoops. Here's an idea, why not cut those extended halftime shows or maybe do away with some of the required "station breaks". I'm sure you can find 5 minutes of less commercial breaks somewhere.

Also on kickoffs, the time will now start as soon as the kicker's foot touches the ball. Supposedly this will also make the game shorter.

One interesting change to watch is to see if shortening the kicking tee from 2 inches to 1 inch will cause more return kicks instead of touchbacks. In the case of the Ducks, this is a good thing since they have Jonathan Stewart returning kicks.

Finally, the instant replay rule has been tweaked. Coach's will only have one replay challenge per game and the team must have at least one timeout available when the challenge is called.

This is a huge advantage for WVU who loves an up tempo game of football to speed up the game.

This plays into WVU's no huddle offense with Pat White calling the plays from the line of scrimmage which was run the first 3 years of RR"s season at WVU.

"Spot the Ball" is back. Im happy the the NCAA went back to making the game go faster.

Jeez, and you wonder why every thread becomes an WVU thread?

College football attempting to shorten the length of the game?

Good, that means I can spend less time grimacing while watching Buffalo suffer another three touchdown(or more) loss.

Maybe Turner Gill can put a little fire into this team.

Hell maybe he's still eligible to play.....

My apologies on replying to a thread no one was responding to and referencing WVU as a beneficiary to the rule change because of their no huddle offense.

Maybe we should talk about Golf?

ZZZZZZZZZZZZ

[ August 03, 2006, 08:01 PM: Message edited by: GymMountainEER ]

btw -- don't know if anyone else saw this but the NCAA last month changed the names of Division 1A and Division 1-AA. They are now the "Football Bowl Subdivision" and "NCAA Football Championship Subdivision"

I'll keep using the old terms, thanks very much.

Give him a break. He didn't say WVU once in his last sentence. wink

I'm amazed at the difference the rule change made. Last year there were only 4 games in week one that were under 3 hours. This year there were 27.

Personally I liked it. It's great when your team has an early lead but regret it when your team needs 10 with 5 minutes left.

The one bad thing is that the NFL games seem to take forever. I think Detroit and Seattle are STILL in the 4th quarter.