The national coordinator of college football officials handed down a rule interpretation Wednesday meant to close the loophole Oregon exploited in its victory against Ohio State by giving the offensive team the choice to reset the game clock if the defense plays with 12 or more players in the final two minutes of either half.
On Saturday, Oregon seemed to intentionally use 12 players on what proved to be the second-to-last play of its 32-31 win against the Buckeyes in an attempt to drain the clock. While the Ducks were penalized on the incomplete pass, the four seconds coming off the clock were more beneficial to Oregon than the 5-yard penalty was to Ohio State.
The Buckeyes were still out of field goal range. They ran one more play, snapping the ball with six seconds left in the fourth quarter, but ran out of time.
“Football is a very dynamic game,” coordinator of officials and NCAA secretary rules editor Steve Shaw said in a statement. “Occasionally there are specific situations where committing a penalty can give a team an advantage. A guiding principle of the NCAA Football Rules Committee is that there should be no benefit when a team commits a penalty. The goal of this in-season interpretation is to eliminate a potential clock advantage for committing a substitution foul and take away any gain for the defense if they violate the substitution rule.”
Using a previously approved rule meant to penalize teams for committing “a blatant and obvious unfair act designed to take time off the clock,” the rules committee approved a new interpretation of end-game substitution fouls.
“After the Two-Minute Timeout in either half, if the defense commits a substitution foul and 12 or more players are on the field and participate in a down, officials will penalize the defense for the foul and at the option of the offended team, reset the game clock back to the time displayed at the snap,” the interpretation read. “The game clock will then restart on the next snap. If the 12th defender was attempting to exit but was still on the field at the snap and had no influence on the play, then the normal substitution penalty would be enforced with no clock adjustment.”
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