Clock change has inconclusive results in first night

One of the big topics of discussion this past season was the change in how the clock would work during the course of the game. In the NCAA's never-ending attempt to shorten the length of games, the NCAA instituted some new rules regarding the play clock. The first rule is a 40/25-second play clock, similar to that of the NFL. At the end of every play, the 40-second clock starts. The prior rules incorporated a 25-second clock that did not start until the officials marked the ball ready for play. Additionally, after a player runs out of bounds and the ball is made ready to play, the game clock starts. Under the old rules, the game clock did not start until the ball was snapped. This rule does not apply in the final two minutes of a half.

While the goal of shortened games is admirable, many purists were fearful that the changes would inevitably lower the number of plays run during the course of the game. Thus, the fans would be shortchanged some football in exchange for appeasing television requirements.

I only saw one time last night in which a play didn't get off (South Carolina was forced to call a timeout) so I decided to see if there was any way to compare the length of the game and plays run. Unfortunately, there was only one rematch between teams that also played in 2007 (Oregon State/Stanford). So, with an incredibly small sample size based on a game that east coasters couldn't stay up to see, here are the results.

2007: Oregon State won 23-6 in Corvallis in a game that took 3 hours exactly. Oregon State passed 21 times and ran 44 times while Stanford passed 32 times and ran 25 times for a total of 122 plays from scrimmage (discounting kicks).

2008: Stanford won 36-28 in Stanford in a game that took 3 hours and 39 minutes. Oregon State passed 54 times and ran 28 times while Stanford passed 17 times and ran 48 times for a total of 147 plays from scrimmage (against discounting kicks).

As you can see, he number of plays actually increased over last year's game and so did the length of the game. There were several mitigating factors that likely caused the increased time. First, the 2008 game was on ESPN2 on the opening night of college football while the 2007 game was not televised anywhere (). With the plethora of commercials, in-game SportsCenter updates, and halftime shows, this could easily increase the length of the game. Additionally, the 2008 game had 71 passes while the 2007 game only had 53 passes. Thus, under the new rules, if there were numerous incomplete passes in the final two minutes of the game, that would account for additional play stoppage because the game clock would not start when the ball was ready to be put into play.

CollegeFootballHeaven hopes to have further analysis of this important rule change throughout the season, including more next week after more rematches.