What are the rules for the NCAA game clock? All you need to know

The NCAA Football Rules Committee has gone on to change a few NCAA game clock rules for Divison I and Divison II football rules. This change is aimed at making the games played for a shorter duration. So college football fans may notice games ending more quickly than the previous season in 2023.

According to statistics, an average college football game ran for three hours and 22 minutes in 2022. With these new changes in the NCAA game clock rules that have been implemented, it will cut down the duration of each game, which ultimately means that teams will have fewer plays to make per game.

Heading into the 2023 college football season, there are three key changes that have been brought into the NCAA game clock by the Football Rule Committee.

The first change is that the clock will keep ticking after 1st downs. It will only stop during the last two minutes remaining of each half. Previously, we've seen the clock stop after a team made a first down. This is one of the major changes in the NCAA game clock rules that teams will have to adapt to. It is more in line with the NFL rules, with the exception of the clock running for the last two minutes of each half.

This new game clock rule will also affect teams making comeback plays in the second half. They'll have to focus on increasing the tempo of their offense, which sometimes may also lead to mistakes being made.

The second change in the NCAA clock rules is that teams now cannot call for timeouts one after the other. This change brings an end to the 'Icing the kicker' strategy, which was used by many teams to disrupt the concentration of a kicker making a field goal.

One famous use of this tactic was by the Pittsburgh Panthers coach Patt Narduzzi against the Duke Blue Devils last year. They called for multiple timeouts to throw off the Duke kicker, which ultimately led to the Panthers recovering and went on to win the game 28-26.

The third change that is taking place in the NCAA game clock rules is that untimed downs will be taking place only in the second and fourth quarters according to its needs. Prior to this change in the NCAA game clock rules, a penalty called for a live-ball foul in the last timed down of a quarter would result in officials deciding to extend it with an untimed down.

But now, this situation will only take place in the second and fourth quarters, as it aims to shorten the time of each quarter and ultimately, the overall game.

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The changes in the NCAA game clock rules have led to divided opinions in the college football scene

These new set of changes in the NCAA game clock rules have led to people sharing their divided opinions on the same. When UCLA went against Coastal Carolina recently, UCLA coach Chip Kelly did not look like he was in favor of the clock not stopping after first downs.

UCLA defeated Coastal 27-13. And during the halftime interview, shots were fired by Kelly as he shared his opinion on the new NCAA game clock rules.

"This new rule is that's crazy. We had four drives in the first half. This game goes fast. Hope you guys are selling a lot of commericals", Kelly said.

On the other hand, coach Pat Narduzzi told Sporting News that he is in favor of the change in the NCAA game clock rules to align it more with the NFL games.

"I'm ok with that. To me, as much as we can model our game after the NFL, why wouldn't we? These kids all want to go play at the next level. Why not just keep it the same? You could trim seven minutes from the telecast. That's a good rule", Narduzzi stated.

The new rules are definitely going to change the face of college football games. But as the season continues, teams will start settling down into this new game format, and maybe use it to their advantage on the field.