Texas Tech is the poster team for the four-hour game. Only one Big 12 team, Kansas State, matches the national average of 3:24. Baylor was in fourth nationally (3:44) and Texas fifth (3:41), giving the Big 12 four of the top five teams with the longest average games. The Big 12, loaded with pass-happy spread coaches, leads Power-Five conferences in average duration of games at 3:36, with Texas Tech averaging 3:48 and Oklahoma State 3:47. The trend toward the spread offense means more plays and more first downs - and more clock stoppages. “We will have advertising,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said. #2017 MAC FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME TV#And because TV is the leading revenue source in the sport, no one is going to ruffle the feathers of the golden goose. Therefore, the need to create and fill commercial inventory to pay for those slots is even greater. The main reasons are obvious: TV and the spread offense.ĮSPN, ABC, Fox and CBS are all scheduling more prime-time games. In 1996, the average length of an FBS game was 3:01. Major League Baseball games last only a minute longer than that and the average NBA game is 2 hours, 15 minutes. Twenty years ago, the average college football game wasn’t much different in elapsed time than the average NFl game.īut last season, the average length of an FBS game was 16 minutes longer than the average NFL game (3:08). “Any attempt to whittle away at that will be seen as a negative.” “I don’t want to be the guy to tell people they can only have 12 minutes for halftime,” said Shaw. Those activities are considered part of the game-day experience, and their time on the field is considered untouchable. Leaders in major college football don’t want to shorten halftime, which is the province of bands, majorettes, recognition of big-money boosters and accomplishments in non-revenue producing sports. The MAC also will experiment with clocks in the stadiums to let fans know much time remains in TV timeouts. One conference, the Mid-American, has set a goal of 3:20 for the average game, five minutes shorter than that league averaged in 2016. “Rather than change the rules of the game, they want us as administrators and officials to take some certain steps in an attempt to increase the pace of the game and as a result to decrease the length of the game,” said Dennis Hennigan, ACC supervisor of officials. The feeling among almost all conferences is that games can be shortened through efficiency. “We didn’t extend the game,” he said of the replay process. The average replay stoppage in the SEC, where games lasted two minutes longer than the national average, was one minute, 26 seconds - almost the same as the year before. Player safety continues to trump all other considerations, and SEC coordinator of officials Steve Shaw said that only five targeting fouls were initiated from the booth in that conference last year. But the Pac-12 has taken the first step: It will experiment in non-conference games with a 15-minute halftime break and reduce the number of commercial breaks.Ĭonferences also are not modifying instant replay rules, especially as they pertain to whether a targeting foul has taken place. Generally, there are no plans to change rules, cut TV commercial duration or inventory or shorten the 20-minute halftime (it’s 12 minutes in the NFL). According to NCAA statistics, the average FBS game last season was 3 hours and 24 minutes, the longest in the sport’s history and several minutes longer than the average college baseball game.Īnd Power Five conferences are going to do something about that for the 2017 season: Ask game officials and stadium operations staff to, pretty please, pick up the pace. #2017 MAC FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME PROFESSIONAL#College football games are long and getting longer, outlasting any other professional or top-level college team sports experience.Įven college baseball, the sport pilloried the most by critics for its languid pace of play, doesn’t take as long, on the average, as a Football Bowl Subdivision game.
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