The NCAA has issued a new interpretation of its substitution rule following controversy over a penalty flagged against Oregon in their recent game against Ohio State.
The update aims to prevent defenses from gaining an advantage by violating substitution rules late in a half or game.
“Football is a very dynamic game,” said Steve Shaw, CFO National Coordinator of Football Officials. “Occasionally there are specific situations where committing a penalty can give a team an advantage. A guiding principle of the NCAA Football Rules Committee is that there should be no benefit when a team commits a penalty. The goal of this in-season interpretation is to eliminate a potential clock advantage for committing a substitution foul and take away any gain for the defense if they violate the substitution rule.”
The new interpretation states that after the two-minute timeout in either half, if the defense commits a substitution foul with 12 or more players on the field, officials will penalize the defense and, at the option of the offended team, reset the game clock to the time displayed at the snap. The clock will restart on the next snap. If the 12th defender was attempting to exit but had no influence on the play, the normal substitution penalty will be enforced without a clock adjustment.
Oregon’s strategic use of the rule in their game against Ohio State sparked anger among Ohio State fans, prompting the NCAA to clarify the rule to prevent similar situations in the future.
Host of The Football Fever and former Buckeye Jay Richardson had some thoughts on the way Oregon used the rule to their advantage.
“hen you have 12-man on the field and the refs don’t stop the play, then it becomes almost like an offside on the defense to where it’s a free play,” Richardson said. “You see Will trying to find something, incomplete pass but it burns four seconds. you see Dan on the sidelines smirking like that worked out perfectly and you use that time on the clock.”
Richardson also talked about why the NCAA needed to make this change.
“They need to discourage coaches from doing this because if that exact situation arises again, any coach who is paying attention is going to do the exact same thing,” Richardson added. “It’s a copycat league like the NFL.”