New clock rules

OOB doesn't stop the clock permanently anymore though, so it would have to be a LOT more. 

We're also at a point where half of most P5 teams' schedules are still cupcake games. We can gather almost nothing useful by these numbers at this point in the season. 

I miss the bygone era of funny Miller Lite ads. Beer commercials used to be fun to watch. 

Yeah, but how else would I have found out that I can insure my boner?

don't forget the RUGGED, MANLY TRUCK VOICE ads

Right? I’m like: how many people have Crohns? Is it enough to spend billions on a commercial on every channel 24/7? It’s like 3 of the same drugs too - the tyk2 inhibitors. Also, do people request medicine by name? Isn’t that up to the doctor and you’ll likely get the one the rep visited with last week. 

Shame this man! SHAME HIM!!! 

Has USC been doing that?

Michigan has been running out the clock from the first quarter on.

USC has been in dogfights with Colorado, Arizona St., and Arizona.  In their last 3 games they've run 60, 65, and 58 plays while their opponents ran 71, 90, and 77 plays.  They score very quickly, which helps depress their totals, but they were demolishing teams last year and were still running high-60s/low 70s number of plays per game against the same teams.  For example, they ran 58 plays against Arizona this past weekend and that was with OT; last year they ran 77 against the same Wildcats.

Michigan was salting games away last year just as much as they are now but they're still running fewer plays.  

My sense is that a lot of teams play up-tempo anyway so the loss of a couple of seconds after first downs isn't massive especially when a bunch of them also throw the ball a ton, which leads to incompletions and stoppages of the clock.  For example, Cal is #6 nationally in terms of plays run (464 in 6 games) and have a decent mix of run and pass (they've thrown the ball 209 times and run it 255 times).  But they have completed only 58% of their passes, which is 96th nationally.  So even though they run the ball a good team they get a lot of natural breaks due to incompletions.  By comparison, an elite Washington offense has attempted 193 passes and run the ball 130 times, but because they're completing the ball 74% of the time they wind up running fewer plays per game overall (65 plays per game for the Huskies, 77 for the Bears).  Last year the Huskies averaged 75 plays per game with largely the same run-pass ratio and efficiency.

So what's happening is that efficient offenses are running fewer plays because they're scoring quickly and not putting the ball on the ground.  Mediocre offenses that (like Cal) can run a bunch of plays still if they move fast enough because their inherent inefficiency means they don't have a ton of burned clock.  Michigan is one of the most efficient offenses in the country and so they just burn the clock down on teams running fewer plays than others.  Maybe that changes if they get into a dogfight and throw the ball more, maybe not.  But I think it's telling that teams like PSU (81 plays per game but only the 29th best offense per SP+) and Clemson (76 ppg but 26th per S+ offensively) are so high in terms of plays run while teams like Oregon and LSU are much lower (around 68 ppg) despite being much better offenses overall.

They wouldn't need to snap it 5 seconds faster on average...

Assuming your estimate is true that it takes 5 seconds to move the chains 30 times that's 150 seconds. Since there are approximately 140 plays per game (70 for each offense) teams would only need to snap it somewhere between 1 and 5 seconds faster, probably close to 2 seconds faster. Hard to say exactly because some portion of the plays do stop the clock

Not exactly. You have to divide the lost 2.5 minutes (150 seconds) by the total number of plays, which was about 140 for the two teams combined, That's an average of a little more than a second per play that teams would be snapping the ball faster on average.

1. Not all of those 1st downs are impacted by the new clock rules (e.g., 1st downs in the last 2 minutes of each half)

2. Michigan is on average hiking the ball with 6 seconds on the play clock, meaning they’re taking 34 seconds between plays. If new clock rules are shaving 2.5 minutes (150 seconds) off the game as you say, assume that’s equally split between the teams, so that’s 75 seconds less time for Michigan when they have the ball. 75/34 = ~2 less offensive plays per game for Michigan. The reason that Michigan is down ~10 offensive plays per game this year has far more to do with other factors than the clock rules. 

and where were we at PPG (offense) last year? I'm trying to stay on topic here. Nobody is saying snap counts mean that the world is ending.

User picture checks out though..

Oh my gawd. You just casually gonna murder Iowa like that?

The OP’s premise was wrong as it was based on a faulty reading of the data. See BronxBlue’s comments. There are fewer plays per game across the board. It is obvious and it sucks. 

Well, MSU has also had a coaching change, so there's that.