College Football Rules Changes Approved
The NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel approved several college football rules changes this week, including regulations involving players ejected for targeting, duplicate numbers and the time allowed for official video reviews.
Although targeting will still carry the penalty of ejection, players that are called for the violation will no longer have to spend the rest of the game in the locker room, as they have since the rule was instituted in 2013.
Players will now be allowed to stay in the bench area with the rest of their team.
In addition to the targeting change, the rules committee also instituted a guideline for instant replay officials to complete video reviews in less than two minutes.
This is not a hard and fast time limit. The panel stiplated that exceptionally complicated reviews or those that involve end-of-game issues should be completed as efficiently as possible without a stated time limit.
But the message is clear that steps need to be taken to help improve the pace of play.
Additionally, the panel approved a clock administration rule regarding instant replay.
If the game clock expires at the end of a half and replay determines that there was time remaining and the clock should start on the referee’s signal after review, there must be at least three seconds remaining, when the ball should have been declared dead, to restore time to the clock.
If less than three seconds remain on the game clock, the half is over.
As for duplicate numbers, it will be much easier moving forward to tell who the players on the field -- with or without a program.
Moving forward, only two players per team will be allowed to wear numbers that are also being worn by a teammate. They must play different positions and can't be on the field at the same time.
The change was recommended to reduce confusion caused by multiple players wearing the same number. Allowing more than two players with the same number has created confusion for the game officials and has made scouting opponents difficult.
The panel also rules that "0" is now a legal number.
Finally, coaches must most be on the field during pregame warmups when players are present and all players must be identified by number. The game officials' jurisdiction will now begin 90 minutes before kickoff rather than the current 60 minutes in an effort to help prevent pregame altercations.
