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NCAA Approves Change To College Football's Overtime Rules

Teams will now be forced to attempt two-point conversions in the second overtime.

Andrew Lind

NCAA Approves Change To College Football's Overtime Rules
NCAA Approves Change To College Football's Overtime Rules /

On Thursday afternoon, the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel announced a change to college football’s overtime rules that will go into effect for the 2021 football season.

Teams will now be required to attempt a two-point conversion after a touchdown in the second overtime period, whereas the two-point conversion attempt was previously required during the third overtime.

According to a press release, this change is being made “to limit the number of plays from scrimmage and bring the game to a quicker conclusion.” 

This became a focus for the NCAA after Texas A&M and LSU played seven overtimes in 2018, with the Aggies winning by a score of 74-72. It was the highest-scoring game in Football Bowl Subdivision history and lasted nearly five hours.

If the game reaches a third overtime period, teams will now attempt alternating two-point conversions – instead of starting another drive at the opponent’s 25-yard line – until a winner is determined. This was previously done once the game went to a fifth overtime.

Ohio State is 11-2 in overtime games since it was implemented in 1996, with the only losses coming at the hands of Northwestern in 2004 and Purdue in 2011. 

Notable wins include the double-overtime victory over Miami (Fla.) in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl national championship, a win over Iowa in 2009 that sent the Buckeyes to the Rose Bowl, a double-overtime victory at Penn State in 2014 that ended on defensive end Joey Bosa’s walk-off sack and the double-overtime win over Michigan in 2016 that featured Curtis Samuel’s game-winning touchdown run.

The longest game in school history, meanwhile, was the triple-overtime win over N.C. State and quarterback Phillip Rivers in 2003, and the most recent overtime game for Ohio State was the 52-51 win at Maryland in 2018.

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Andrew Lind
ANDREW LIND

Andrew Lind is an Ohio State beat writer and photographer at BuckeyesNow, founder of The Ohio State Uniform Database and the NCAA and NFL writer at SportsLogos.net.

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