Time is on Our Side

Hurrah! The NCAA has decided to scrap Rule 3-2-5e. For those not up to speed on their NCAA regulations (shame on you!), Rule 3-2-5e is the one-year-old collection of regulations that were designed to shorten the length of games. Studies showed that while the games were in fact shorter last year (dropping nearly 14 minutes on average), the time saved came at the expense of actual football rather than from the interminable commerical airtime. Football games were, on average, 12 plays lighter last season.

With fans and coaches up in arms over the new rules, the NCAA Rules Football Committee decided to repeal the new regulations at their yearly meeting, currently underway in Albuquerque.

“The changes we made last year, overall, did not have a positive effect on college football at all levels,” said Michael Clark, chair of the committee and head coach at Bridgewater (Virginia) College. “Our charge is to protect the game and do what is best for college football. Last year’s game lost too many plays, but it accomplished the need to shorten the overall time it takes to play a game. The changes we have made for 2007 balance both of these issues.”

In Rule 3-2-5-e, the committee altered its rule to have the clock start on the snap after a change in possession, as opposed to the 2006 rule which started the clock when the referee signaled the ball ready for play. Also, the committee returned its rules on free kicks to 2005 standards, starting the clock on kickoffs only when the ball is legally touched in the field of play.

The proposed changes still need to be approved by the Playing Rules Oversight Panel on March 12th before becoming the new law of the land.

The committee did propose new rules to keep the games shorter without reducing the number of plays; the full list of tweaks can be checked out at the above link.

The only one that really jumps out at me is the proposal to move kickoffs back from the 35 yard line to the 30 yard line. With ND's troubles with deep kickoffs, an extra 5 yards will make it even more imperative that Ryan Burkhart, Brandon Walker, or whoever handles the kickoffs get enough leg into it so that the balls aren't regularly landing in someone's arms at the 15 yard line. And with a likely reduction in touchbacks, ND's special teams tackling will need to really be on point.

Getting back to the length of the games for a second...for Irish fans, the NBC broadcasts have been a running source of criticism ever since the contract was signed. But credit where credit is due: the home of Dwight Schrute does a much better job of cutting down on the dead air than its peers.

In a superb collaborative effort, Marty of the excellent cfbstats.com, Matt of College Sports Schedules, and Gary of Steriod Nation analyzed the length of college broadcasts of all TV networks and found that NBC is the only network that actually improved the plays per minute ratio of their broadcast this past season, so much so that NBC games had more plays/minute than games on ABC, CBS, or ESPN. For a more in-depth breakdown, check out the Wizard of Odds, who rightly should be credited for staying on top of this topic and making sure it got plenty of exposure.

The NBC games are slightly still longer than those on other networks, but NBC managed to bring the overall broadcast length down from an average of 3 hours and 40 minutes in 2005 to 3 hours and 18 minutes in 2006, the biggest drop of any network. The Wiz details the full breakdown here. (It is worth noting that ND played only one overtime game in 2005, and none in 2006, and that's something that likely kept NBC's averages low.)

This is great news, and all the more surprising that the NCAA recognized a mistake and moved quickly to rectify it. And it's nice to know that the home of ND football, NBC, is doing better than the others in delivering a quality product to the fans: a better ratio of football to ads, a superb online pre-game show and webcast of the halftime band performance, the revamped intro, and of course, the retirement of the Halls Fruit Breezer Fan of the Game. Hurrah.

Tight Fit

Reading the PT post below, it struck me how young our group of returning wide receivers are. You've got Grimes, a junior, and then three sophomores (we've got it on good authority that Chase Anastasio, contrary to what was previously reported, isn't going to return for a fifth year). While we're replacing more overall production at other positions (notably quarterback), no other position group of returners on the team is as young.



This got me thinking about the role of John Carlson in the offense next season. In the Sugar Bowl, Carlson was sparsely used in the passing game, and he caught just one lone pass all game long. Most of the time he was lined up next to Sam Young as an extra blocker on that side of the line. But next year, we can ill afford to keep him in to block.

In fact, it's Carlson, not David Grimes, who returns as the team's leading receiver. Despite missing most of three games with an injury, Carlson had nearly as many catches as Darius Walker, and finished third on the team in reception yardage. Since we're breaking in a new quarterback and a (mostly) new running game, Carlson is one of the few returning stalwarts Charlie can count on. It's quite possible that when Charlie draws up the offensive blueprints for '07, it will be Carlson, not one of the unproven receivers, who becomes the first or second option in the passing game.

There is some precedent for this. You probably remember a tight end for the Patriots by the name of Ben Coates. (If you played fantasy football in the mid-90s, you definitely remember Coates). Ben Coates was an unheralded fifth-round draft pick out of tiny Livingstone College, and in his first couple of years in the pros he was an afterthought in the Patriots offense. In 1993, the known TE-loving coach Bill Parcells took over the Pats and installed a young tight end coach by the name of Charlie Weis. The Pats' receiving corps wasn't much to speak of (Vincent Brisby? Michael Timpson?), and Coates vaulted from afterthought to the center of attention. Charlie explains (from "No Excuses"):

[In 1993] I had the opportunity to work with two very good tight ends -- Marv Cook, a fifth-year veteran and Pro Bowler, and a talented third-year guy named Ben Coates. Marv started twelve games for us in '93 and ended up catching twenty-two passes. Ben made only four starts, but led the team with fifty-three receptions and had our second-longest catch that year on a fifty-four-yard touchdown. The difference between them was that Marv was a short-to-intermediate receiver, whereas Ben was more of a three-level receiver -- short, intermediate, and deep. We threw a number of deep balls to Ben.

Standing six feet five inches, Coates was a long strider. Long striders usually aren't very fast, but when Ben got going, he'd run faster. Long striders also tend to have problems with the short-to-intermediate routes because it's harder for them to get in and out of breaks than it is for someone with shorter legs, but Ben learned how to use his body to get open. He would push off and rarely get penalized by the officials for doing it. He also had very dependable hands. He clicked with Bledsoe, and Drew would always look to him.

After Ben took over as the starting tight end in 1994, his catches skyrocketd to ninety-six, which at the time was the most by any tight end in NFL history. He made the first of many Pro Bowls.

When the Pats drafted Terry Glenn and acquired Shawn Jefferson the passing game started becoming a little more egalitarian, but even so, Coates was the primary or secondary option for Bledsoe for a long time.

As it pertains to John Carlson, the Coates antecedent could be instructive. We know Carlson fits the mold of a three-level receiver; we know he's got some wheels; and we know he's got exceptional hands. (For a quick refresher, take a look at this highlight reel). As with the '93 Pats, we've got a situation where our best receiver happens to be our tight end, and knowing Charlie's penchant for playing to his team's strengths, John Carlson might be an even bigger target this coming season.