Extra Points from the Temple game

There were a bunch of things I thought were pretty interesting coming away from the Temple game. But none of them really had anything to do with actual football. So I wanted to take some time in this post to run down a few observations about the game last week.

• First off, it seems Guido D'Elia has a bit of trouble staying on task. We all figured -- most sane people would -- that with the new changes to the scoreboards would affect BOTH scoreboards.

How silly we commoners must be.

The new northern scoreboard, as you would expect, with the new lettering. Like it or not, it's done.



Fair enough. The south scoreboard must look just as new, right? Well...



Folks, it was bad enough that Guido and PSU decided, rather spasmodically, to make drastic changes to Beaver Stadium scoreboards. But the fact that they couldn't even do it in one shot is just beyond me. If anyone out there can help me out on this, I'd appreciate some rational explanation of this whole situation.

Although, I was told that Penn State is making an overall branding move away from the "tennis ball" font we've grown used to. We'll see how that works.

• Did anyone else think there were an excessive amount of media stoppage this week? I've been to every game so far this year, and none of them felt like they had this many delays for commercials.

Maybe it was just me, but I swear I heard some boos ring down. There was actually a nice flow in the action this week, particularly on some of the drives around halftime. The commercial breaks really killed the momentum for each team.




• The student section is becoming an embarrassment. Penn State has won two Big Ten titles in four seasons, is coming off a Rose Bowl, and boasts some of the best players in the nation. Where the hell is the support?


And don't feed me any of that "I'll come when they play better opponents" crap. I'm not buying it, unlike tickets.

• Can anyone tell me who arrives and departs each week in this helicopter? That's one rich mo-fo. (yeah, I just said 'mo-fo') But what's really weird about it, is that whoever it is, touches down about 30 minutes before kickoff, and lifts off within an our of the final gun.



• If you haven't heard of it, or seen it in person yet, this is easily the greatest tailgate in Penn State football history. A few of my former Blue Band-mates banded (haha, get it? 'Banded') together and actually won one of the old Penn State Football buses on Ebay last year. They've spent the better part of the offseason renovating it into an RV, getting everything up to state code for those kinds of vehicles. Here's a big old shout out to Eric and Dave, and everyone else who are keeping old school Penn State alive each week.


The buses were first put into service in 1982. Think about that. How many legendary players rode to the stadium in those seat? It's really cool to think of that.

Hey, that wasn't all that bad of a post. Maybe I'll do it more often.

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Pretty soon, the commercials will have to take "Football Timeouts"

I realize this is almost old news at this point, so I won’t present it as breaking by any means. What I want to do is pick apart what exactly each of these rules would mean to college football, whenever they’re approved. Frankly, I hope sooner than later.

“… after a year of consideration, the committee proposed a 40/25 second play clock system to encourage a consistent pace of play. All rules proposals will be sent for membership comment and considered by the Playing Rules Oversight Panel before taking effect.”

What I think: This is a good step for CFB. But it’s being taken for the wrong reason. More on that later. But the idea of a 40-second play clock will help keep the game flowing, and allow NFL fans to easily transition to watching CFB.

“A main charge of the rules committee is to enhance the safety of our student-athletes,” said Michael Clark, chair of the committee and head coach at Bridgewater (Virginia) College. “In recent years, the committee has attempted to address head-down contact and dangerous helmet contact in general. The committee is directing game officials to strictly penalize head-down contact as well as players that target defenseless opponents.”

What I think: MICHAEL ROBINSON. I remember watching, live, M-Rob lowering his shoulder into Minnesota defensive back Brandon Owens, who decided to lower his own body—helmet first—into the tackle. Robinson never even hit the ground, but Owens crumbled like a rag doll. At the time, it was a great hit, but later turned out to be very tragic for Owens; he never played again. I have one question for Clark, just who would have been penalized on that play? Robinson lowered his shoulder into the tackle, Owens lowered his helmet into Robinson, but Owens ended up getting hurt? Would you penalize Owens, who was on a gurney a few minutes later?

“A proposal relating to the chop block rule... Another safety proposal deals with a dangerous tackle – commonly referred to as a “horse collar.” Any player will now be prohibited from grabbing the inside back collar of the shoulder pads or jersey, or the inside collar of the side of the shoulder pads or jersey, and immediately pulling the runner down.”

What I think: This one’s not really much of an impact. Players will just have to learn how to properly tackle. That’s all.

“Two other major proposals deal with the pace of play. The rules committee passed a 40/25 second play clock system in an effort to standardize the pace of play. Unless the game is stopped for administrative reasons (e.g., change of possession, injury, etc.), the offensive team will have 40 seconds to snap the ball after it is declared dead.”

What I think: Already covered.

“Additionally, the committee made a change in the timing of the game after a play in which a runner goes out of bounds. Except in the last two minutes of each half, the game clock will start on a signal from the referee, rather than on the snap.”

What I think: This one’s huge. For years, everyone’s known that in CFB, you could completely stop the clock by going out of bounds. Not any more folks. But, as I said in the beginning, this is for the wrong reason. Why did it take so long for the NCAA to propose this, and seriously consider adopting it? Is it a coincidence that it comes right after the NCAA tried to cater to the telecoms by providing more commercial time, rather than actually shortening the game? This is about as transparent as Bush trying to protect the telecoms under the guise of national security (oops, sorry, but I couldn’t resist that one). I could be wrong (about the length of football games). I hope this really does shorten them, but if they are only three or five minutes shorter, you’ll know who to blame, and who is really responsible for deleting game time to insert commercial time.

“The committee also made the following proposals:
• In the rules relating to instant replay, plays where a fumble leads to an immediate recovery may be reviewed.
• In replay rules, a coach that challenges a play and is successful will retain the right to challenge one more time for a maximum of two.
• When a kickoff goes out of bounds, the receiving team may accept the ball at the 40-yard line instead of the 35.
• The incidental five-yard face mask foul was removed. All face mask fouls (pulling, twisting or turning) will be a 15-yard penalty.
• A yardage penalty for sideline control was instituted.”

What I think about these: They’re all nice, simple rule changes. The one that sticks out is the face mask change. I hate the incidental. HATE IT. How many times have we sat through games, wondering why one team got the five-yarder, but the other didn’t? Just go by the personal foul variety. It makes it much easier.

But I’m sure all of this is truly for the benefit of CFB, right? Right.

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Whistle While You Work, Part 2

"College football is about tradition!"

"We don't want to be like the NFL!"

Blah, blah, blah... Just shut up. No other sport in the United States has a more civilized relationship between amateur and professional than football. College football will never lose its mistique. Marching bands, cheerleaders without implants, fans waiting in line hours before the game, the tailgating. No, pro will never match college... except for the rediculous game clock rules.

We now enter the second installment of how the clock rules need to be changed in order to maintain the integrity of the game. Swallow your pride and just freaking adopt the NFL rules for stopping the clock during games. How much faster would college games end if the clock didn't stop on first down? If that's too much, then stop the clock on first down inside two minutes of each half. I don't care how you do it, just don't stop that clock every time the head coach sneezes.

What's one thing NFL scouts preach come draft time? Speed, speed and more speed. Not just physical speed, but mental speed. Honestly, how many running backs are taken in the first round just because he "knows the game" or has the "mental toughness?" Now, how many quarterbacks have their careers made for them if they show the smarts NFL scouts are looking for? College football has coddled its QB's for way too long, and it's about time they had to get up and get the ball in the air or in the RB's gut... fast!

Yet, there's something wrong with how the college football rules committee figured this thing out. The new rule change for the 2007 season reads as such:
"Rule 3-3-7-a
A team timeout is 30 seconds plus the 25-second play clock interval. This provision will only apply to televised games. Conference television contracts will supersede this rule. (For example, if a team calls a timeout and a conference television agreement allows for a television timeout to be used, this timeout extends to a full media timeout. The television partners – through normal protocols – make the decision through their timeout coordinator when the ball should be whistled ready for play.)
Rationale: This change eliminates 30 seconds from team timeouts. The committee believes many timeouts are called to simply stop the clock (or when a team has formation, substitution or play clock problems). This reduction in time will save about three to six minutes, depending on how many timeouts are used during the game."

The television partners make the decision when the game should be played? Really?! Well there's a freaking surprise. Hold on, I saw a blatant holding penalty on that play. You saw it, television partners have college football by the balls and don't plan to let go anytime soon. Someone could get hurt out there, like the fans who pump in billions of dollars into the football coffers each year.

So now, televised college football games will be played differently and have alternate rules applied to them just because some network needs to stick in another Cialis commercial? Come on. Although some of the clock changes are good (like reverting to the old kickoff clock rules) most of them do nothing but allow for less game and just as many commercials before. The rulers of college football should stop trying to mask the problem of game length with butterfly BandAids when the wounds call for stitches.

If the clock continues to roll on first downs, like in the NFL, would we have memories like the one of Ryan Leaf rushing his Washington State Cougars to the line of scrimmage in the 1998 Rose Bowl versus Michigan? What if the clock kept running? Time would have run out long before the teams lined up for the last play. You would also see many more coaches throwing to the sidelines during the final two minutes. Wouldn't it look better to the scouts if your possible first-round QB had game tape showing his proficiency running an NFL-style two-minute drill? We'll see, some day.

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I rest my case

While the latest fad is sweeping the college football web,CollegeFootballNews.com held a roundtable disscussion for national college football writers. Dennis Dodd of CBSsportsline.com was invited as one of the "experts" to weigh in on the questions. The roundtable took place on August 7.

Question: What one thing on the field would you change?

Dennis Dodd's answer: "Two things, sorry. More day games and less TV timeouts. When those new rules were instituted last year, TV didn't budge one inch. Therefore, we got less football instead of less commercials which make the games so long. Maybe I'm naive but to shave one 90 second break off a game doesn't seem like too much to ask."

Sound familiar? I guess that puts me on the same level as the "experts." See you all later for part two.

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Whistle While You Work, Part 1

Wouldn't it be great to take a ref's whistle to work with you every day?

Think about how great it would be to find yourself in the middle of the boss's bitching (you know, the kind of complaining when you're trying to get work done, but they are taking up your valuable time by telling you how your work attitude needs to improve, then wonder why you need to stay later that day just to get the story done) and you whip out the whistle to blow the play dead. Sometimes all it would take to make an employee happier would be to take a media time out once in a while. After all, they do it in college football practically everytime the game clock is stopped.

That takes me to my real topic - the constant debate over how clock rules should be altered to keep the games from lasting forever. There's really two arguments that come from this conversation. The first being my personal gripe with college football in general, that there are WAY too many commercial time outs during games. The other being the obvious solution, which is to adopt the NFL clock rules for college football.

In today's part of this two part post, we'll tackle the media timeouts mentioned above. I understand that money drives sports in modern times, but it has gotten to the point where college football games feel like breaks between commercial segments. It was only a few years ago that commercial breaks during broadcasts were few and far between, mainly due to the fact that it was a live telecast and anything could happen. Why would you want to risk missing a key argument on the sidelines between a coach and his star Cue-Bee? What if the commercial break runs over a few seconds and the viewers miss that 68-yard TD grab on the first play from scrimmage?

Well, just look no further than those fellas in red standing on the field. You know, those guys who look like refs, but have a 100-foot cord running from their headsets to the broadcast station on the sidelines. They are controling the game clock. You thought it was the officiating crew? HA!

NCAA officials, the media outlets and school officials claim that the games were entirely too long, sometimes lasting as much as 4-5 hours at a time. True, I completely agree. But if you want to cut down on the wasted time, don't pump out silly rules like starting the game clock on the kick off, or on the change of posession. Cut down on the freaking media timeouts!

The next time you're at a game, or someone you know is going to a game (hopefully I'll be able to report on this firsthand at the Florida Int'l game for all of you) watch to see how many times the teams are in the huddle, ready to break to the line of scrimmage, yet they have to wait for the media to give them the OK to start playing again. It's not the game itself, it's the people running the game that are the problems with wasted time. The only reason they're changing the clock rules (and stupid rules they are) is to allow the same amount of commercial time, while placing a BandAid on the bigger problem of very long football games.

In part 2, I'll explain why the adoption of NFL clock rules can only help college football, and why some call me dumb for thinking so.

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