CALLING YOU OUT - THE NCAA RULES COMMITTEE

by WCT, The Ship of Fools

“Calling You Out!” is a periodic segment where WCT takes people to task for irresponsible journalism, foolhardy activities, or just general douchebaggery. Nothing is sacred, no one is spared, watch your ass mister! You could be next!

This time, we question why people are trying to rob all of us of our college football

Have you ever yourself complained, or heard of anyone complain, that college football games are too long? Have you ever thought to yourself, Man, 3 hours and 20 minutes is just too much of my Saturday to spend watching a football game. Oh how I wish the NCAA would shave, like, 20 minutes off each game, and squeeze in more TV timeouts! Because I haven't.

Nevertheless, in their never-ending quest to fix what is not broken -- or break what seems to be working perfectly fine -- The NCAA rules committee has proposed another round of rule-changes, one of which would start the game-clock after the ball is spotted on plays that go out-of-bounds.

If you are not a huge college football fan, you may have missed this announcement, and may not even notice the difference. But for me, and others of my ilk, its about the principal. The NCAA football season is short enough as it is, there is no reason to change the rules so that individual games are shorter and feature fewer plays.

You may remember the ill-conceived clock rule-changes of two seasons ago, whereby the clock started immediatedly after the ball was kicked on kickoffs, rather than when the ball is touched by the receiving team. You may also remember Wisconsin's brilliant exploitation of these ridiculous rules to run out the final 1st half seconds in a game against Penn State. Luckily for all of us, in a move that smacks of the rules committee saying "my bad," that disastrous rule was repealed immediately the next off-season.

Well, they are at it again.

My question is, why? Why are they trying to eliminate plays? Why are they trying to speed up games? Is the rules committee is run by wives and girlfriends of college football fans, who think that their significant others are spending too much time watching games and neglecting them? Did Pottery Barn, or Bed, Bath & Beyond come up with these rules? This is the only plausable explanation, right?

I don't know about you, but I don't like it. Yes, shorter games means less time spent at the bar on game days, and may be better for my liver in the long run, but we only have a few Saturdays a year for the season, and the last thing any of us college football fans wants to do is spend less time watching football and more time doing (gasp!) other things.