The Clock Won't Stop After First Downs In College Football Games Anymore Because ... Fuck You, That's Why

CBS Sports — The NCAA is expected to approve today rules changes proposed earlier this year that will allow the clock to run after first downs are achieved in all divisions except Division III, CBS Sports has learned. The clock will continue to stop after first downs during the final two minutes of each half. 

The approval will come from the Playing Rules Oversight Panel (PROP) that annually vets rules changes as proposed by the NCAA Football Rules Committee, which made this recommendation in March.

Stopping the clock after first downs has been one of the rules that has differentiated college football from the NFL since 1968. Allowing the clock to run is expected to reduce the number of plays by an average of seven per game, according to Steve Shaw, secretary-editor of the rules committee.

Personally, I love fixing problems that don't exist. I'm sure if you polled college football fans, they would have voted almost unanimously for less college football.

This rule change is the result of getting a bunch of university bureaucrats together and telling them they need to fix this manufactured problem of games being too long. Now, of course, they could have shortened the entirely-too-long 20-minute halftime or cut out a TV timeout or two, but that would mean less money to fund pointless conferences like this one where they make the sport worse. Instead, they're going to change one of the few rules left separating college football from the NFL to cut out all of seven plays — so what, 45 seconds or so — per game. Great job, guys.

The only people who complain about college football games being too long are people who don't watch college football. The sport has never been more popular than it is right now. Tennessee football games are the only things I care about for three months a year and what I look forward to all week; I'd like to find a way to make them longer, if possible.

The one saving grace here is that the clock will still stop inside two minutes, though I'm sure we'll get rid of that in due time, as well. After all, who wants endings like this anyway?