The national coordinator of college football officials said Wednesday that Oregon exploited the threat in its win over Ohio State by giving the offensive team the option to reset game time if the defense played with more than 12 players in the final. The government issued an interpretation of the rules meant to close loopholes. 2 minutes in either half.
On Saturday, Oregon State appeared to intentionally use 12 players on the penultimate play of a 32-31 win against the Buckeyes to eat up time. The Ducks were penalized for an incomplete pass, but the 4 seconds left was better for Oregon State than the 5-yard penalty for Ohio State.
The Buckeyes were still not in field goal range. They ran one more play, snapping the ball with six seconds left in the fourth quarter, but time expired.
“Football is a very dynamic game,” Steve Shaw, NCAA Office of Rules Editor Coordinator, said in a statement. “There are occasionally certain situations in which a team benefits from committing a penalty. A fundamental principle of the NCAA Football Rules Committee is that there should be no advantage for a team to commit a penalty. Interpretation during this season The purpose of this is to eliminate a potential time advantage in the event of a substitution foul and to deprive the defense of any advantage in the event of a violation of the substitution rules.
Taking advantage of a previously approved rule intended to penalize teams that commit “blatant and patently unfair acts intended to steal time,” the rules committee will Approved new interpretation of substitution foul.
“After a two-minute timeout in either half, if a defender commits a substitution foul and more than 12 players are participating in the down on the field, the referee shall, at the option of the offending team, Penalize the defender for the foul; reset the game clock to the time displayed at the time of the snap,” the interpretation reads. “The game clock will restart on the next snap. If the 12th defender was leaving but was still on the field at the time of the snap and did not affect the play, a regular substitution penalty will be assessed with no time adjustment. It will be applied.”
Any 5-yard penalty will be assessed, but the offense chooses whether to reset game time. The idea behind it, Shaw said, was that there could be a late-game situation where the offense decided it was advantageous to run out the clock.
This “blatant and obvious unfair conduct” rule refers to situations where a defending team intentionally takes a holding penalty late in a game or tries to pass an interference penalty in order to protect their lead and waste time. It was a response to this. In this case, if determined to be intentional, the foul will be upgraded to a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct.
Shaw said it would be difficult for officials to determine whether a team intentionally used more than 12 defenders, and that resetting the clock is a more important factor, so illegal substitution fouls should be ruled out. He said the rules committee determined there was no need to upgrade the status to sportsmanlike. act.
Oregon coach Dan Lanning stopped short of truly admitting on Monday that the Ducks intentionally used the No. 12 defender on the penultimate play against Ohio State.
“We’re spending an inordinate amount of time on the situation,” Lanning told reporters with a bit of a laugh. “There are some situations that don’t happen very often in college football, but this was obviously something we’ve been working on. So we’ll see.”
Ohio State faced a third-and-25 from Oregon’s 43 with 10 seconds left in the fourth quarter, and the Ducks took a one-point lead. Oregon State called a timeout, but it seemed difficult to get the defense back on the field.
The play proceeded with the Ducks fielding 12 players, resulting in Will Howard making an incomplete pass to a covered receiver. With four seconds left, Oregon State was flagged for an illegal substitution. A five-yard penalty gave Ohio State the ball at 38 yards with six seconds left, but they still needed more yards to have a realistic chance of making a field goal. Buckeyes kicker Jaden Fielding’s career long is 47 yards.
The Buckeyes tallied one more play, but Howard’s 12-yard scramble burned up the clock.
(Photo: Ali Gradisher/Getty Images)
