The Rules Reconsidered: It's Not Delay Of Game--It's Perfecting The Play

A humorous inquiry into the "delay of game" penalty--by a sports ignoramus

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DISCLAIMER: THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN WRITTEN FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY; ANY ATHLETIC WISDOM OR INSIGHT OR KNOWLEDGEABILITY THEREIN, NOT DIRECTLY QUOTED BY MY COLLEAGUES, IS NOT ONLY PURELY ACCIDENTAL BUT UNFORTUNATE.

I was at Ye Olde Bull and Bush on Montgomery 76107 (please, no direct correspondence; all mail will be summarily returned) watching the Horned Frogs, in all their mauve and ragged glory, take the field in what proved to be the most boring first half of any game I've witnessed in recent memory--all twelve of them.  I feared not only for TCU's victory, which I had been assured was inevitable -- though as to that, I like to quote Tommy Lee Jones from my favorite of his movies "No Country For Old Men":  even between man and beast the outcome is never certain--but that I would not be able to write this current article of absolute transcendent brilliance, as penalties were disappointingly low, and when one's job is to make light of athletic peccadillos, a game can be not only frustratingly close to a tie but bland to boot. 

"Oh for God's sake, Mac," I said to my buddy Ben The McBurnett.  "I can't dig anything out of this with a spade, much less a pen.  I don't care what Seamus Heaney says." 

"It's college football, bro, don't worry.  There's bound to be a penalty some time." 

"Deear," I said, ever so politely, to The Dee, "what the hell is going on now!" 

"We just got a first down."  

"Is that bad?" 

"No it's good."

"It sounds bad.  You said down, right?  Down sounds bad."  

"You're worse than my cousin.  She thinks OT means Overtime." 

"You mean it doesn't?" 

"Offensive tackle," Ben said (unhelpfully). 

"The hell you say!" said I.  "We all know the offense doesn't tackle anybody, not least their own guy.  Who are they going to tackle?  The linebacker?  Seems pretty tough to tackle."  

"That's what it means," he said, showing a Google search to prove it.  "OT.  Offensive tackle." 

"Acronyms," I muttered into my beer and watched a game that appeared by the second to impose upon me a dreadful bout of writer's block. 

But the pinstriped pinheads, never to disappoint, threw a flag against us.  The penalty:  delay of game, as Ben the McBurnett patiently explained.  

"These guys are stoners.  Look at them. What do they care about a delay of game?"  

"I don't think the referees are stoned." 

"I got stoned for the first time in my life on my thirteenth birthday.  ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Screamin' Cheetah Willies.  December 21st, 1997 to be exact.  Ector County Coliseum.  Skynyrd didn't show--probably getting stoned.  Anyhow, there wasn't so much as a gram of marijuana within ten feet of me, but there was so much smoke in that building, I got a secondhand high.  Now, look at that student section right there.  You don't think those referees are experiencing firsthand something else?"  

"It was a good call.  Delay of game." 

"Ben you're pissing me off.  This is TCU we're talking.  They're not delaying anything.  They're perfecting their play." 

"You have to do that in reasonable time."  

"They were perfectly in reasonable time.  You think I want to sit here any longer than I absolutely, reasonably have to?"

And on that note, I excused myself to the restroom.  Upon returning, however, Ben the McBurnett had disappeared--raptured, it may have been, or, more likely, having committed an Irish fade.  Truly, the man was, in that regard, at least as Gaelic as The Gordon Hanlon.  

"Deear, explain this delay of game crap."  

"Well, delay of game is how they keep the game going smoothly.  You can't just sit around and let the clock tick." 

"Why not?  They do it in basketball all the time--which you would know were you to have read my best article from basketball season, "Squatting Out The Clock."  But either way, we have a new coach, with NIL and transfer portals and all that.  Our boys need to concentrate.  And that takes time.  And I can't imagine penalizing someone for trying to put on their best game play for me, if not your own self."  

"And if they take an hour?" 

"If that's what it takes for TCU, that's what it takes."  

"And what if Colorado did it?  Would you call it a penalty then?" 

"Absolutely." 

"Why the double standard?" 

"The Purple Rule, Deear," I said, forefinger pointed to the sky, "which, in all matters athletic supersedes all other injunctions." 

"What's the purple rule?" 

I smiled. 

"If the opposing team does it," I said, "it's a penalty.  If TCU does it, it ain't." 

And that is, as they say, the bottom line.  

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