NCAA Rule Changes Include Making Auburn's Extra Play For Field Goal Against Alabama Illegal

New rules and regulations that will begin in the 2020 regular season

The NCAA recently announced a few changes to major football rules that will affect the University of Alabama moving forward. 

Starting next season, college football players who get penalized for targeting will not have to exit into the locker room. 

On Monday, the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel approved a change where a player, who is called for targeting and ejected, can stay on the bench with the team, instead of leaving the field. 

Noting else regarding targeting has changed. 

Other changes are listed below: 

Instant replay/review

One area of concern from previous seasons was the length of time it takes for replay officials to make a call when a play is being reviewed, now the panel has approved a guideline for officials to complete video reviews in under two minutes.  

Exceptions to this time limit are plays that officials find overwhelmingly complicated and end-of-game situations. 

The panel also approved a rule that states if the game clock runs out at the end of a half and replay shows there is time still on the clock, there must be three seconds or more left to run another play. 

If there is less than three seconds, the half is over.

For example, if the 2019 Iron Bowl happened under this rule, Auburn would not have been awarded an extra play to kick a field goal, one second before halftime because there was not more than three seconds on the game clock, when the play was reviewed. 

Jersey numbers 

The committee has restricted the amount of players on one team from wearing the same number to two. Both players who wear the same number must not be on the field at the same time and play different positions. 

In response, the panel approved that players can now wear “0” as a legal number to crack down on confusion with players wearing the same number. 

Pregame

Previously, the game officials’ jurisdiction of what takes place on the field happens on the field starts 60 minutes before kickoff. Now, that jurisdiction will start 90 minutes before kickoff to limit and police negative interactions before the game actually takes place. 

An example of this would be, prior to the 2019 Belk Bowl between Kentucky and Virginia Tech, when Wildcat quarterback Lynn Bowden got in an altercation with a Hokies player in pregame warm-ups. 

The officials were not allowed to take action because it happened outside of the 60 minutes of when their jurisdiction would have taken place. 

Under the new rule, coaches must be present when the players are on the field and players must have a number visible in order to be identified.