College Sports Wire put together a list of changes that need to happen to the overtime rules in college football, including a way to encourage coaches to risk going for the win rather than settling for ties. Matt Zemek of College Sports Wire wrote an article comparing the college overtime rules to the MLB All-Star Game home run derby. He discussed a variety of different points, including why and how he would change the overtime rules for college football and the ramifications it would have on the playoff seedings.
To briefly summarize Zemek’s new college football rules, he would throw out the coin toss and make the visiting team start, move the ball back to midfield rather than the 25-yard line, and he would shorten overtime to one possession for each side.
Zemek wrote what would happen if the game resulted in a tie here:
“College football can institute a very simple and binding rule: In a simplified two-possession overtime, the team/coach with the second possession has the burden of avoiding a tie. If that team ties, it will lose any and every season-ending tiebreaker for conference placement, playoff priority, everything. Some people will say, ‘But why penalize the team that happens to get the ball second in overtime?’ The whole point is for coaches and teams to be incentivized to avoid overtime in the first place and not be conservative.”
This new set of rules that Zemek provided would definitely quicken the pace of overtime and also provide a fun and more thrilling product for fans to watch. The stakes will be higher and coaches will be forced to call their best plays to end the game in a swift manner rather than take the conservative route.
Zemek might be on to something with these new rule changes. The NCAA should listen to what fans have to say in order to create a more thrilling product on the field. Too often have games become long and drawn-out because coaches were trying to do “the smart thing” rather than end the game. This would solve just that.
This article originally appeared on UCLA Wire: College football overtime rule changes make sense after thinking about MLB All-Star Game
Reporting by Ryan Lorenz, UCLA Wire / UCLA Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
