There are a whole bunch of smiling faces in coaches offices around the country today. Those widely despised game-clock changes the NCAA instituted last year -- the changes that chopped off an average of 14 plays per game, that Texas Tech coach Mike Leach called "stupid" and Michigan coach Lloyd Carr called "the worst rule in the past 50 years" -- are all but gone.
The NCAA Football Rules Committee, which convened this week in Albuquerque, N.M., announced a proposal Wednesday to revert to 2005 standards: No more starting the clock when a ball is kicked or on a change of possession. No more teams having to burn a timeout in the final minutes before they even run a play. No more intentionally lining up offsides on a kickoff to run the clock out as Wisconsin's Bret Bielema did against Penn State last year.
"The changes we made last year, overall, did not have a positive effect on college football at all levels," said committee chair Michael Clark, the head coach at Division III Bridgewater (Va.) College.
All in all, great news for college football as a whole, but the new rules for kickoffs could be disastrous for the Wildcats, as we often put the 'special' in 'special teams'.
Now, if only something could be done about permanently crippling the young men that sacrifice their bodies for the sport, we'd be all set.
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Titles we also would have accepted:
"Three Minutes Resumes Being A Long Time In the Big Ten,"
"NCAA Heeds Words of Warren G. Harding, Institutes Return to Normalcy,"
"Now We Only Have Our Inadequacies to Blame. Again."
I am glad that you were able to work "our teams sure are 'special'" into the conversation, though.
Also, the interesting thing about the Brett Bielema (sp?) thing was that the refs were going to call unsportsmanlike conduct/delay of game on the second offisdes penalty, but a clipping or holding call by Penn State forced the re-kick.
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