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Report: NCAA considering significant changes to college football overtime rules
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College football’s overtime rules could look significantly different next season, according to a report.
That’s per ESPN’s Mark Schlabach, who says the NCAA Football Rules Committee is driving the proposal.
The new rule would be two-fold. First, teams would have to go for a 2-point conversion after scoring a touchdown during the second-overtime.
Secondly, the committee is proposing all subsequent overtimes would simply be teams exchanging two-point conversion attempts.
Under the current rules, teams are not forced to run 2-point conversions after a touchdown until the third overtime. Alternating 2-point conversions don’t occur until the fifth overtime.
Stanford coach David Shaw spoke with ESPN about this proposal. Shaw, the chairman of the NCAA Football Rules Committee, says discussions about adjusting overtime rules started after LSU and Texas A&M’s famous seven overtime game back in 2018.
Overtime rules were adjusted following that game, but the committee is now looking to further change procedures with an eye on player’s health and safety.
“We had an overtime game against UCLA this year, and [Bruins coach] Chip Kelly went for two after the second overtime, and I didn’t blame him one bit,” Shaw told ESPN. “We’d been playing for a lot of plays and we’d had a couple of injuries on both teams. It was time to say, ‘Hey, you know what, we’ll either make this and win or not get it and lose and go on.’ This is a safety issue, this is a length-of-game issue and a number-of-plays issue.”
According to Schlabach’s report, the proposal will be heard by NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel on April 22.
Spenser is the news manager at Saturday Road and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.