BAMANEWSBOT
Staff
It's hard to argue with the rules changes proposed this week by the NCAA Football Rules Committee.
Adjust the ineligible receiver downfield rule from 3 yards to 1 yard, unless the lineman is engaged with a defensive player when a pass is released? Every defensive player and coach who's been burned by a pop pass - see the 2013 Iron Bowl - has to like that one.
Call a 15-yard unsportsmanlike foul on players who push or pull others from a pile, like after a fumble? Safety first.
Allow 8-person officiating crews, which have been used by the SEC and others as an occasional experiment? The game moves faster than ever. The more eyes on and off the ball, the better.
Each of those proposals and the rest of the recommendations from the committee, which must be approved by the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel, makes sense.
What doesn't is the makeup of the Rules Committee.
Of the committee's 11 current voting members, only two come from the Football Bowl Subdivision: Air Force coach Troy Calhoun, the chairman, and Big 12 Associate Commissioner Edward Stewart, who played football at Nebraska and in the NFL.
Only five committee members are current coaches. Calhoun is the only FBS coach, and there are no coaches from a Power 5 conference. Of the other coaches on the committee:
One, Bob Nielson of Western Illinois, comes from the Football Championship Subdivision, the old Division I-AA. Two - Lock Haven's John Allen Jr. and Wayne State's Paul Winters - come from Division II. One - Fairleigh Dickinson's Brian Surace - comes from Division III.
Each of those men may possess a keen football mind, but does that make sense?
There are noteworthy exceptions - see West Alabama's Malcolm Butler making the Super Bowl-saving interception for the Patriots - but for the most part, FBS players move faster and hit harder than their FCS, Division II and Division III counterparts.
The fundamentals of football, like blocking and tackling on a 100-yard field, may be the same at every level, but the speed and violence of the game ramps up every step up the ladder.
Why would you want a non-scholarship football coach helping to make the rules thatNick Saban and Gus Malzahn have to play by? Why would you think one set of rules, covering everything from equipment to technology to pace of play, should be sufficient to govern the college game at every level?
The Rules Committee roster also includes administrators such as Colonial Athletic Association Commissioner Tom Yeager. As NCAA Infractions Committee chairman, he once cracked that Alabama had been "staring down the barrel" of the death penalty.
Now he has a voice in making and changing the playing rules that govern Alabama football.
It's curious, at a time when the Power 5 conferences have earned the right to have more say in their own governance, that the big boys haven't insisted on having a bigger say in the way their biggest sport is played.
Last year's disorganized and at-times disingenous debate over a possible 10-second rule to slow the pace of play led to serious discussions about the need for college football to have a competition committee similar to the NFL's. It may happen as early as next year.
The NFL Competition Committee includes current coaches and team executives. They propose rule changes, and the owners have to approve them. That's not unlike the current college format, with the Rules Committee offering proposals and the Playing Rules Oversight Panel approving or rejecting them, with one major difference.
The NFL Competition Committee doesn't include reps from college, junior college and high school football.
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Adjust the ineligible receiver downfield rule from 3 yards to 1 yard, unless the lineman is engaged with a defensive player when a pass is released? Every defensive player and coach who's been burned by a pop pass - see the 2013 Iron Bowl - has to like that one.
Call a 15-yard unsportsmanlike foul on players who push or pull others from a pile, like after a fumble? Safety first.
Allow 8-person officiating crews, which have been used by the SEC and others as an occasional experiment? The game moves faster than ever. The more eyes on and off the ball, the better.
Each of those proposals and the rest of the recommendations from the committee, which must be approved by the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel, makes sense.
What doesn't is the makeup of the Rules Committee.
Of the committee's 11 current voting members, only two come from the Football Bowl Subdivision: Air Force coach Troy Calhoun, the chairman, and Big 12 Associate Commissioner Edward Stewart, who played football at Nebraska and in the NFL.
Only five committee members are current coaches. Calhoun is the only FBS coach, and there are no coaches from a Power 5 conference. Of the other coaches on the committee:
One, Bob Nielson of Western Illinois, comes from the Football Championship Subdivision, the old Division I-AA. Two - Lock Haven's John Allen Jr. and Wayne State's Paul Winters - come from Division II. One - Fairleigh Dickinson's Brian Surace - comes from Division III.
Each of those men may possess a keen football mind, but does that make sense?
There are noteworthy exceptions - see West Alabama's Malcolm Butler making the Super Bowl-saving interception for the Patriots - but for the most part, FBS players move faster and hit harder than their FCS, Division II and Division III counterparts.
The fundamentals of football, like blocking and tackling on a 100-yard field, may be the same at every level, but the speed and violence of the game ramps up every step up the ladder.
Why would you want a non-scholarship football coach helping to make the rules thatNick Saban and Gus Malzahn have to play by? Why would you think one set of rules, covering everything from equipment to technology to pace of play, should be sufficient to govern the college game at every level?
The Rules Committee roster also includes administrators such as Colonial Athletic Association Commissioner Tom Yeager. As NCAA Infractions Committee chairman, he once cracked that Alabama had been "staring down the barrel" of the death penalty.
Now he has a voice in making and changing the playing rules that govern Alabama football.
It's curious, at a time when the Power 5 conferences have earned the right to have more say in their own governance, that the big boys haven't insisted on having a bigger say in the way their biggest sport is played.
Last year's disorganized and at-times disingenous debate over a possible 10-second rule to slow the pace of play led to serious discussions about the need for college football to have a competition committee similar to the NFL's. It may happen as early as next year.
The NFL Competition Committee includes current coaches and team executives. They propose rule changes, and the owners have to approve them. That's not unlike the current college format, with the Rules Committee offering proposals and the Playing Rules Oversight Panel approving or rejecting them, with one major difference.
The NFL Competition Committee doesn't include reps from college, junior college and high school football.
Continue reading...
