If college football was rated by the Bureau of Consumer Protection, there might be an issue with 2024. At the intersection of commerce and player safety, the season concluded with less football and longer games.
That’s one hidden conclusion from last season as CBS Sports posts its annual college football stat wrap.
The much-discussed change allowing the clock to run after first downs, beginning in 2023, has had the desired effect. Since before the rule change in 2022, total combined plays per game are down five per contest to approximately 175. (That total includes special teams and live-ball penalties.)
However, the average game length in 2024 ticked up to 3 hours, 27 minutes. That’s the tied for the second-longest game length since the NCAA started tracking such things in 2008. The 11 playoff games were even longer, averaging 3 hours, 29 ½ minutes. That’s counting the overtime Peach Bowl involving Texas and Arizona State that lasted more than four hours.
Over a full season, that 2024 playoff average would be the longest ever.
What happened? It’s complicated and perhaps unexplainable.
That first-down rule was one of the most significant in decades. Since 1968, the play clock had been stopped after first downs. That was one of the key differentiators between the college and pro game until the rule was changed two seasons ago.
The clock was allowed to run for player safety reasons. In theory, less football meant fewer injuries (more on that below). The change also had a legal underpinning. When they were dragged into court on head trauma issues, for example, the NCAA and schools could point to that first-down step they’d taken to lessen injury.
In that sense, player safety trumps any larger concern about length of games.
“Commissioners have begun to look at plays per game rather than duration,” said an NCAA source who wanted to remain anonymous.
In the first year of the first down rule (2023), total plays declined only slightly, but that same year overall scoring declined to its lowest rate since 2011 – 27.8 points per team.
The obvious Joe Twelve Pack conclusion is that television has intervened to make games longer. But TV industry sources insist the commercial breaks are still the same. The 4-5-4-5 model for breaks is broken down this way – four network breaks lasting two to three minutes per quarter.
After adding breaks at the end of the first and third quarters, those breaks become 5-5-5-5. That’s potentially 36 minutes added to the broadcast. It’s also nothing new. The format has been in place for years.
One explanation for longer games could be the length of “bumpers.” Bumpers are sort of the netherworld getting in and out of commercial breaks. A network might promo its programming for a few seconds before it goes back to live action. Announcers might engage in game analysis, an instant replay or happy talk to fill time. Could that unmeasurable be dragging out games?
“It has more to do with how much time it takes coming in and out of breaks,” a TV industry source said. “It’s not a material difference. If it was a 15-minute difference, 10-minute difference I’d sound an alarm … It could fluctuate next year.”
Something has happened. From 2008-2020, average game length increased 17 minutes per game, almost 9%. Halftimes are 20 minutes and can be adjusted by mutual agreement by both schools. The “two-minute timeout” that was instituted in 2024 also wasn’t a factor. That stoppage mimicking the NFL’s two-minute warning is counted as a network timeout.
All of it is a subtle reminder of the commercials being king. Notre Dame held the ball for the first 9:45 against Ohio State in the College Football Playoff National Championship. That had programmers scrambling to get those commercial breaks in. If not, they carry over to the next quarter, interrupting the flow of the game.
The playoff games in general have been longer. In the 11-year history of the CFP, semifinal games have averaged 3 ½ hours. The national championship games have averaged 3 hours, 33 minutes. Last month’s Ohio State-Notre Dame championship game lasted 3 hours, 20 minutes.
“It just felt like it was longer,” said an industry source. “It was TV, it was not the game itself. That’s what pays everybody’s salary … Intrinsically, the game is not getting longer. What’s causing the duration? Nobody likes to say this but you know it, it’s the media timeouts.”
Factor in TV ratings any way you want in this discussion. Ratings for the CFP National Championship were down 12% from the previous season. Overall, ratings for the championship game have been uneven. During the season, however, the number of total viewers attracting at least five million, seven million, 10 million, 15 million and 20 million viewers all increased, according to Football Scoop.
Maybe we should harken back to what former Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith said years ago: College football is basically immune to game length fatigue because of their passion. Fans arrive at 7 a.m. for a 3:30 p.m. ET game “and they don’t leave early.”
NFL kickoff rules!
The NCAA and its members don’t get credit for much these days. But decreases in injury rates have been so dramatic lately — especially on kickoffs and punts — that the NCAA Rules Committee may have an interesting decision to make: whether to adopt the NFL kickoff rule.
The so-called “Dynamic Kickoff Rule” has led to a dramatic decrease in injuries. The NFL said concussions on such plays were down 43% compared to 2021-2023. What’s left for the NCAA Football Rules Committee to continue considering this week is whether a similar alteration would be strategically and aesthetically pleasing in Division I.
“That’s exactly [right],” NCAA secretary rules editor Steve Shaw told CBS Sports. “There’s not a compelling drive that we have to do away with our kickoff.”
The NFL change was perhaps the most significant in kickoff history. Critics pointed to its lack of action, but the dynamic kickoff rule did create more returns. Almost a third of kickoffs were returned in 2024 compared to 21.8% in 2023. The percentage of kickoffs have increased each of the last six years. In 2024, that figure surpassed 50%.
Last season, the average of 2.99 kickoff returns per game were the highest since 2016; the 2023 average of 1.91 was the lowest ever. The NFL is already thinking about tweaking its rules to create more returns.
Beginning in 2012, The NCAA began addressing injury concerns when kickoffs were moved from the 30 to the 35, thus lessening the likelihood of a return. Beginning in 2018, players could get a touchback by fair catching the ball inside the 25. Other adjustments have been made, such as eliminating the blindside block and wedge-buster blocking.
Shaw doesn’t have the final numbers, but he will be armed with tendencies that indicate it may finally be safer to play on a kickoff team than run a play from scrimmage. That should make sense because there are fewer kicks per game (about 11) compared to those 175 combined plays per game. But kickoff injury rates have been higher than scrimmage plays.
The math says those kickoffs make up 6.3% of all plays. Logic dictates the injury on those plays, then, should be around that number. Shaw believes after consulting with the Datalys Center for Sports Injury Research, that firm’s NCAA Injury Surveillance Program will show a decrease.
All that will be left for the rules committee is to decide whether that unique NFL kickoff is strategically and aesthetically pleasing enough for college.
Parity? Got your parity right here
Don’t call me an apologist for the ongoing Big Ten-SEC takeover, because there has been a bit of national championship parity lately:
- 2024 — Ohio State
- 2023 — Michigan
- 2022 — Georgia
- 2021 — Georgia
- 2020 — Alabama
- 2019 — LSU
- 2018 — Clemson
- 2017 — Alabama
- 2016 — Clemson
- 2015 — Alabama
- 2014 — Ohio State
- 2013 — Florida State
That’s seven different champions in the last 12 years. During that time period above, 23 teams have filled the 54 available postseason spots.
In the last six years, five teams have won it all (Ohio State, Michigan, Georgia, Alabama, LSU). That’s the highest number in a six-year span since 2002-2007, when seven teams won (LSU and USC split in 2003).
Since 2001,16 different teams won titles. That seems like a lot to me.
Targeting penalties are working
If the idea of targeting penalties is to change behavior, it’s worked.
For the fourth consecutive season, average targeting calls per play have decreased or stayed the same. In 2004, it was 0.14 calls per game (124 targeting penalties in 863 games), or one every seven games.
That’s why no matter what your opinion of the application of the rule, the NCAA isn’t going to backtrack on targeting.
“We can’t back away from targeting. We just can’t,” Shaw said.
A four-year study by the Pac-12 that concluded in 2022 still resonates. It found that a player was 40 times more likely to suffer a concussion if a targeting penalty was called. If that call was upheld, he was 49 times more likely to be concussed.
Numbers to know
- Scoring: 28.01 per game, second lowest since 2010 (record: 30.08, 2016).
- Passing completion percentage: 61.4%, third-highest ever (record: 61.5, 2021).
- Passing yards per game: 227.1, lowest since 2010 (record: 238.3, 2012).
- Pass attempts per game: 30.71, lowest since 2009 (record: 33.6, 2007).
- Completions per game: 18.86, lowest since 2018 (record: 19.8, 2012).
- Total offense per team: 386.73, breaking a five-year decline but the second-lowest since 2010 (record: 417.1, 2016).
- Yards per rush: 4.42, highest since 2019 and eighth highest all-time (record: 4.59, 2016).
Note: The all-time records for yards per rush, passing yards per game, total offense and scoring have all been set since 2012.
- Heisman winner Travis Hunter played 1,443 total snaps. That’s 16 snaps less than Houston as a team played all season offensively and defensively.
- Miami has still only won one bowl game since 2006. It is 1-12 in the postseason in that span.
- Ole Miss was the only team to average more than 10 yards per pass attempt. The last time there were fewer was 2015 when there were none.
- Only two playoff teams finished in the top 14 in explosive plays (20-plus yards): No. 1 Texas and No. 9 Penn State
- Using Pro Football Focus as a guide, Ohio State has the two best returning players next season – receiver Jeremiah Smith and defensive back Caleb Downs. Smith just had one of the best freshman seasons of all time by a receiver. Downs might enter 2025 as the nation’s best defensive player.
- Bowling Green’s Harold Fannin Jr. broke the tight end record for catches (117) and yards (1,555).
- In falling just short of Barry Sanders’ single-season record, Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty became the first 2,000-yard rusher since 2019. He was the first from the Group of Five since San Diego State’s Rashaad Penny in 2017.
One final indignity
By making a championship run, Ohio State (now No. 1 at .735) surpassed Michigan (No. 2 at .733) as the winningest team by percentage in history. The spots remain flipped in all-time victories: Michigan, 1,012; Ohio State, 978.
