POLL: College Football Game Length

[TwinsRRUs]

ESPN has an article about some commissioners wanting the college football games to be shorter as they are at 3 hours and 24 minutes per game average.
In the past 10 years, game times have increased an average of 20 minutes per game.

Some games have lasted over 4 hours. Is that too long?

 

[c2o]

No.
More football is always better.

 

[iROOT4nu]

Quick question but could a shortened play clock possibly increase a game. IE more snaps, more incompletions, etc etc

 

[GBRhuskers]

As the game continues to get pussified, the length of games will continue to increase.

I wouldn't mind seeing the college game adapt the same rules as the NFL; running clock till 2 minutes left in 1st half and 5 minutes left in the 2nd half, ball carrier isn't considered down unless touched and no ejection for targeting, or a major adjustment to the current rule as the foul is too much of a gray area for me. The clock alone will speed up the game by a few minutes.

 

[cubsker]

improve replays and stop taking commercial breaks after kickoffs ffs

 

[anon_umk0ifu6vj6zi]

The 1st down clock stoppage is annoying as shit. 1 minute is plenty of time and allows a team with no timeouts to get free ones by playing the whole field, instead of having to get out of bounds like they should have to.

 

[RealHusker]

This is so ironic...a few days ago there were a few posters complaining about how long NFL games were. NFL games gotta be much quicker than college games.

College could shorten the half-time, for sure. I could get on board with using the NFL's timing rules and not stopping the clock on first downs, as well. I'm sure there are a few other things that could be done to shorten the games. Some are just tedious.

 

[TwinsRRUs]

Quick question but could a shortened play clock possibly increase a game. IE more snaps, more incompletions, etc etc

Ummm sounds like you would be correct to me. More plays means more change of possessions. More change of possessions means more punting and kick offs. When they go to commercial break after punts and kick offs, you would be adding length to the game.

I used examples from that article and from an article from like 2008 when talking about the running 40 second clock rule, but that shouldn't even be an option after delving into it a little bit.

 

[TwinsRRUs]

One problem I have seen (not sure if it ever happens very often though):

Nebraska scores a TD.
<commercial break>
Nebraska kicks off
<commercial break>
Opponent runs first play.

Why would you place a commercial break after a kickoff when you just had a commercial break? I know I have seen it at least one time... but honestly haven't paid much attention to it.

It is even in the rules that they can do it (Wiki):

College football requires twenty commercial breaks per game, with ten in each half. (Exceptions to this are overtime periods, which have none.) These breaks run either a minute, or two minutes in length. Of the ten commercial breaks per half, two are mandatory: at the end of the first and third quarter.

The remaining eight breaks are optional. The timeouts can be applied after field goal tries, conversion attempts for both one and two points following TDs, changes in possession either by punts or turnovers, and kickoffs (except for the ones that start each half, or are within the last five minutes).

The breaks are also called during stoppages due to injury, instant replay challenges, when either of the participating teams uses one of its set of timeouts, and if the network needs to catch up on its commercial advertisement schedule.

What surprises me is that they must be either a minute or two minutes in length. Sometimes they feel like 3 to 5 minutes.

 

[TwinsRRUs]

I think fans that attend a game dislike the TV timeouts as the players are ready and waiting on the field, yet they must wait until the TV timeout person signals the go ahead to resume play.

Fans sitting at home watching the game probably do not really care one way or the other over an extra 15 minutes. The only issue might be when games overlap and you miss the start of a game because the previous game lasted too long. That is very annoying.

NFL has a 12 minute halftime and no band halftime show.

TV timeouts are needed for $$$.
- Miami's AD said, "It's hard to envision [reducing] commercial times, so we have to figure out ways to make games a little shorter."
- Mike Leach (WSU) said, "They should have fewer commercial breaks. If they don't want to cut the number of commercials, then fit them into less [game] breaks."

From someone that commented on the bottom of an article:
"If the networks have to increase the number of ads they show because of the the increasing cost of carrying games, that's fine - but don't cut time out of the actual game itself. They are, after all, the things the fans have been looking forward to all week long."

 

[anon_umk0ifu6vj6zi]

NFL halftimes are crazy. Was at Lambeau a few years ago for a sub-zero playoff game. Went to piss at halftime, and missed 2nd half kick. It seemed like all they did was go in and take a piss themselves.

 

[donahues17]

They dont want to shorten commercisls as they are paying stupid amounts of money for conference tv deals. Therefore they have to air 700 commercials a game which is annoying as hell.

They could also stop reviewing every single play. Give coaches 2 challenges per half.

I think a big reason for the horrible officiating is due to the reviews as well. Seems refs are saying, oh well, if I get the call wrong they will reviee it anyways.

 

[c2o]

You can do things during commercials and halftime and reviews and hit the button that points left and right and only watch football when they playing football.
You can even pause things that you want to look at until you want to watch football again.

More football is always better.

 

[Nebraska Fan]

limit the number of pass plays