I was all set to write a post about the reply* NCAA Rules Committee chairman Michael Clark sent me last week but EDSBS beat me to it. Below is the email Orson discusses:
NFL studies showed that adding the 25-40 clock will actually add 4 to 5 plays per game based on consistent pace of play. BCS Football and officials themselves were for this change. With the ready for play, live ball out of bounds rules, (This happens about 12 times per game, with on average 3 of those in last 2 minutes) we should get the same amount of plays in a time span that is a few minutes shorter. For the record it is BCS football, TV, Conference Commissioners with lengthy seasons and television that leads the push for faster games. The Committee’s stance is that the game has given about all it can give back without a negative influence on product. Next move will have to be from Administrators or Television themselves. It is still a great game. MC
I don't know much about the original message sent to Mr. Clark, but this is the response I received after I called him a sellout:
NFL studies showed that adding the 25-40 clock will actually add 4 to 5 plays per game based on consistent pace of play. BCS Football and officials themselves were for this change. With the ready for play, live ball out of bounds rules, (This happens about 12 times per game, with on average 3 of those in last 2 minutes) we should get the same amount of plays in a time span that is a few minutes shorter. For the record it is BCS football, TV, Conference Commissioners with lengthy seasons and television that leads the push for faster games. The Committee’s stance is that the game has given about all it can give back without a negative influence on product. Next move will have to be from Administrators or Television themselves. It is still a great game. MC
Not surprisingly, the same exact thing.
I emailed him back*, questioning what these "NFL Studies" are, and also feeding him some of my favorite quotes from my post here. At which time I received this:
Although the most visible BCS represent the minority of college playing football teams. I will be writing a statement to the TV people expressing our concerns that the time problems can’t always be expected to be solved by the product itself. It sells well on its own. MC
Try not to read that too many times because, well, it doesn't make any sense. Back to the original email...
I love this part: "For the record it is BCS football, TV, Conference Commissioners with lengthy seasons and television that leads the push for faster games."
For the record, it is interesting that you mentioned TV two different times in the same sentence. Really, three if you consider that the BCS is all about TV ratings. This makes me think you aren't very intelligent, especially considering you sent this exact same message out to probably thousands of people.
Also for the record, it is interesting that you make is sound as if the rule changes will increase the number of plays, but then in the same paragraph try to explain that you've done all you can to appease the TV execs' demand for shorter games and starting now they will have to act on their own. (Imagine that, TV networks having to cut commercials instead of force changes to the actual rules of the game.)
Your closing line is my favorite: "It is still a great game." This reads as if you believed it was a great game before the most recent rule changes, which, of course, begs the question: why the hell did you fuck with it so much? Oh, that's right, because of TV. Not just TV, though, TV and television.
Now to the fuzzy math in your second response: yes BCS programs represent, technically, the 'minority' of football, but they also represent the vast majority of interest in football...approximately 99.4% if I'm reading these NFL Studies I have on my desk accurately.
Plagiarism seems to be trendy these days, and since I can't ever write a decent conclusion, I'm simply going to steal one from EDSBS, from the link above. And for the record, I agree. A shorter work day would simply mean shorter blog posts.
So Michael Clark’s reply is honest in that it admits TV and the BCS are the prime movers, but it’s less than honest with the suggestion that there will be more plays with the rule change. Suggesting this ignores how the game is actually played, and what teams’ incentives are on the field of play. We could suggest that we shorten our work day in order to “be more productive,” but realistically, there’s little incentive for that to happen–in most cases, you’ll simply get less done, which is precisely what will happen in college football. Thanks to the pressures of television and a lack of ingenuity on the part of sponsors, you’ll see exactly what you feared: less football, period.
* Yes, I emailed him. It's not so much that it was a slow day at work, but rather I read his email address in a post somewhere and thought it would fun to flood his mailbox. You would call me a loser here until you realized I write a football blog, so you kinda should have known that already.
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