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But what about those TV timeouts?
The ACC is embarking on the noble gesture of trying to shorten its football games from 3 and a half-plus hours. The league wishes to emulate the NFL by keeping games that do not go into overtime under 3 hours.
The first thing they say is to tweak the game clock, which had stopped in college on every first down until the ball is ready to be snapped. This season, it will only stop after first downs in the final two minutes of each half.
How much will that shorten the game? Don’t know but what about the TV timeouts?
Another implementation being made will be a popular one. Spend less time reviewing video replays to see if the officials got the call right or wrong. The ACC’s new head of football officiating Alberto Rivaron says, “Replays should not be deterrent to the flow of the game.” He wants the new policy to “take a look, check on egregious errors and move on.”
If the ACC can accomplish that, it could be a trend-setter around college football, although video replays and coaches’ challenges will never go away completely, like in the prehistoric years.
Great. That’s what we all want! But what about the TV timeouts?
Rivaron has also expanded and restructured the officiating and has hired eight position supervisors in an effort to train refs to be more consistent with the calls and cut down on complaints and replays. “That would be ideal,” ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said this week. “We’d like to see the tangible difference from the last couple of years and if our efforts were fruitful.”
Yes, terrific potentially time-saving moves. But what about TV timeouts? Most fans who sit in the crowded stands in agony during timeouts suffer more than those watching at home or at the sports bar, where they can use the TV breaks to hit the kitchen, the bathroom or order another round.
Fans watching live dread a sideline official walking onto the field with a red digital sign during timeouts that can count down from 3-plus minutes to a still-too-long 2 minutes. The length and frequency of the timeouts are controlled by TV networks that carry the game, with ABC the worst and ESPN a close second.
That’s the biggest chunk of dead time in college football. Fewer first down and replay stoppages and better officiating will all help, but the NFL has come up with split-screen commercials and other gimmicks.
Because in the end, it’s the TV timeouts, stupid!
Featured image via 247 Sports/Stuart McNair
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