The Husker head coach and athletics director have offered thoughts on these possible proposals now about to be reality.
The college rules are getting closer to those in the NFL, which seems just fine by Matt Rhule.
The NCAA Football Rules Committee on Friday proposed rule changes that would implement a 2-minute warning at the end of each half and allow FBS teams to use the technology between coaches and one player on the field.
The player would have a green dot on his helmet to signify to officials who is receiving the communication. That communication to the player would be cut off with 15 seconds left on the play clock or when the ball is snapped if that comes first.
Rhule, and Nebraska’s athletics director Trev Alberts, have shared their opinions on these topics before. The Husker head coach has emphasized in particular bringing more on-field communication into the game in multiple media settings.
«We should have the same rules as the NFL, we should have the two-minute warning. How are we playing college football and pro football and we have different hashes – it makes no sense to me,» Rhule said during an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show in December. «I don’t understand no technology.
You go to a high school game they have Hudl on the sidelines, they have iPads. We’re holding up signs and boards. And I think they’re working on all this stuff. College football could be really healthy if we got the same rules as the NFL, we implemented technology, and I think as we go to a bigger playoff hopefully it’s going to be really good for football.»
The proposals from Friday must still be approved by the Playing Rules Oversight Panel in April, but at this point the rules seem like they’ll be in place by the 2024 season. There was a test run conducted during six postseason bowl games which allowed helmet communication for 12 teams prior to this proposal.
As for the 2-minute warning, some might wince initially thinking it’s the addition of another TV timeout. Ideally, however, it’d replace one of those breaks that have been stacking up earlier in games by those involved trying to make sure the commercial quota is hit.
Alberts was asked by a fan on his Huskers Radio Network a few months ago if there had been pushback to to the TV timeouts slowing the flow of the game.
«There is already pushback … and it’s a great observation, and quite frankly it’s an observation that’s not been lost on all of us, including our commissioner,» Alberts said of Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti. «You really get a sense the flow of the game is being disrupted.»
Alberts said then that some rule shifts from last year, like the clock not stopping after first downs (except for the final two minutes of each half), was actually not to reduce the time of the game to fit into a TV window, but rather the effort to take out a few plays for player safety. He believes it removed about five to six plays a game, but added that it didn’t create new inventory for more TV adds.
There’s no question game flow was sometimes clunky last year in games involving the Huskers. There were stops and starts, and stops again, coming multiple times even the first five minutes of some Nebraska games. And stacked commercials also popped up if a team had a long drive. The networks would fall behind their scheduled number of breaks and try to make it up with commercial stops that were more or less back to back: one after a score, another after a kickoff.
«And it’s just dead,» Alberts said. «And that’s the flow of the game we’ve got to fix.»
Alberts brought up then the 2-minute warning possibly being of use regarding the problem. That actually helps flow of game, he pointed out, because it’s known there will be automatic TV advertising at that time.
«Because they don’t have to bank stuff at the beginning worried that they won’t get it made up. These are very valid points. These are the types of stuff are game needs to modernize and think about. Because the fans aren’t wrong.»