NEW YORK — Round 1 in the fight over pace of play in college football goes to those who have the need for speed.
The NCAA football rules committee tabled a proposal Wednesday that would have penalized offenses for snapping the ball before 10 seconds had run off the 40-second play clock.
After a conference call, the committee decided not to send the so-called 10-second rule to the playing rules oversight panel for approval Thursday.
“What the committee agreed to do was table that proposal to allow time to gather more information from the medical community and allow time for a broader discussion for the implications of that change,” NCAA national coordinator of officials Rogers Redding told the AP on Wednesday.
Redding said the NCAA received 324 comments during the feedback period after the proposal passed — 75 percent opposed the change, and 16 percent supported the proposal. The rest were uncertain.
Redding also said a new proposal was passed by the committee to expand roughing the passer to include “forcible” hits to the knees or below. That proposal now goes into a comment period before it will be taken up by the oversight panel. On Thursday, the panel will consider a proposal to drop the 15-yard penalty when an ejection for a targeting foul is overturned by video replay and no other foul is involved. Last year, if the ejection for targeting was overturned, the 15-yard penalty stood.
The 10-second proposal was touted as a move to protect players by slowing down the fast-break offenses now so prevalent in college football. Supporters, such as Alabama’s Nick Saban and Arkansas’ Bret Bielema, said they were concerned about the increasing number of plays in games and the inability to substitute for fatigued defensive players.
Other coaches were infuriated by the proposal. Auburn’s Gus Malzahn, Arizona’s Rich Rodriguez and Texas Tech’s Kliff Kingsbury were among the many critics who said there was no proof that up-tempo offenses increase the risk of injuries.
Rodriguez and Arizona went so far as to make a YouTube video spoof of the movie “Speed” to get his point across.
“I don’t know where it goes from here, but I appreciate the rules committee realizing it was a mistake to put it out there right now,” Rodriguez said Wednesday in a phone interview.
Had the rule been approved, it would have gone into effect next season. The penalty for snapping the ball too fast would have been 5 yards.
