New Overtime Rules Will Shorten The Game, Limit Decision Making
The year was 2012 and Todd Berry was the head coach at Louisiana-Monroe.
In the seventh game of the season against Western Kentucky, the Warhawks had battled back from a 28-7 deficit to get the game into overtime.
Western Kentucky got the first possession in overtime and scored a touchdown to take a 42-35 lead. ULM quarterback Kolton Browning scored on a three-yard run to bring the Warhawks to within a point, 42-41.
Berry looked up and down the sideline at his team.
They were gassed.
The comeback had taken everything out of them.
“Our defense was absolutely spent,” said Berry, now the Executive Director of the American Football Coaches Association. “I’m thinking that we need to get this game over—NOW!”
So Berry rolled the dice and went for a two-point conversion to win or lose the game. It worked and ULM walked off (slowly) with a 43-42 victory. That team went 8-5 and played in the Independence Bowl. That team also played in four overtime games that season, winning three.
“Our last game of the year went into overtime and when the official started explaining the rules to me I told him not to bother. I had lived it,” he said.
But when he thinks of that game in 2012 Berry remembers how exhausted his players were. Then, as coaches are prone to do, he wonders what it would have been like if his team had lost because he decided to go for two in the first overtime.
“Coaches understand that from a career standpoint those kinds of decisions can cost you your job,” said Berry, who was a head coach for 14 seasons at Illinois State, Army, and Louisiana-Monroe. ”But it was the right thing to do."
If some proposed rule changes are approved on April 22 by the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel, coaches will have fewer decisions to make in overtime this season. In fact, the new rules will make most of the decisions for them.
The current rules for overtime allow a team that scores a touchdown the option of kicking the extra point or going for two in the first two overtimes.
Beginning with the third overtime, teams must go for a two-point conversion after a touchdown.
Should the game reach a FIFTH overtime, teams will then start running two-point plays only until the game is decided.
Those rules were put into effect in 2019 in reaction to a seven-overtime game between LSU and Texas A&M in 2018. Texas A&M won 74-72 in College Station. It was the fifth game to go into seven overtimes since the original rules were put into effect in 1995.
Everybody who saw that game knew it was dangerous and changes would have to be made.
Last season, according to the NCAA website, there were 21 overtime games in FBS. One (Texas-Oklahoma) went to four overtimes and one (Michgan-Rutgers) went to three overtimes. Six went into two overtimes while the other 13 lasted one overtime.
But based on some testing of athletes to determine how they handled the extra periods, the NCAA and the AFCA rules committees determined that additional adjustments to shorten the game needed to be made for the 2021 season.
“We took all of the overtimes last season and each one averaged about 16.4 additional plays added to the game,” said Steve Shaw, the NCAA’s national supervisor of officials. “We don’t have that many games that go to three overtimes or more. But once you get to the third overtime you’re probably running too many plays.”
Berry said his coaches, who pushed this idea forward after their rules committee meeting in January, agreed that that time has come to put quicker closure on games.
“For health and safety it just makes sense,” said Berry. “There is a natural flow to what we want to do.”
If approved on April 22, here is how the new overtime rules would work for the 2021 season:
**--FIRST OVERTIME: Teams have the option of kicking an extra point or running a two-point play (from the three-yard line) after scoring a touchdown.
**--SECOND OVERTIME: Teams must run a two-point conversion play after scoring a touchdown.
**--THIRD OVERTIME: Teams will begin running alternate two-point conversion plays until the game is decided.
Bottom line: Teams will play two conventional overtimes and then go into the equivalent of a two-point shootout to decide the game.
The goal of the new rules was simple, said Shaw. Keep the basic fabric of overtime but reduce the potential plays in a game after regulation play has ended.
“Fans like our overtime structure,” said Shaw. “So we keep the same framework but get the game over more quickly. That is the intent.”
“And we think it’s going to be exciting for the fans and coaches,” said Berry. “Of course, the coaches will have to have a few more two-point plays in their hip pocket when the game starts.”
The way the rules are structured, coaches will only have an option about the conversion attempt on the first overtime. After that, the rules take over.
“And yes, it’s going to give the coaches a little more cover,” said Berry said with a laugh.
OVERTIME GAMES IN 2020
Only 21 games went into overtime during the 2020 season. Here is the breakdown
Four overtimes............................1
Three overtimes...........................1
Two overtimes..............................6
One overtime................................13