umchicago

March 12th, 2021 at 4:49 PM ^

i never understood having OTs anyway. win in regulation.  i guess i like this better than the current version.

like in baseball, they are worried about saving pitching arms. hell, just get rid of extra innings and have ties. nobody wants 5 hour baseball games. often the stands are about empty if a game goes beyond 10 innings anyway.

Harlans Haze

March 12th, 2021 at 8:05 PM ^

This is definitely a contrarian opinion, with which I completely agree! I don't know why the tie became so bad. Is a tie really worse than a game (football, baseball, hockey) being decided by something completely different than the actual game? I HATE a college football game being decided by drives that start at the 25 and/or 2-pt conversions. I hate that NHL games are decided by shoot-outs. If it was up to me, I'd keep the integrity of the game in tact for a determined amount of time, then call it win, lose or tie. For football, I'd play one extra quarter. For hockey, 1/2 period. For baseball, 3 extra innings. I think it's pretty widely considered that nobody wants 5 overtime games, or 15 inning games, so you just call it, at some point, tie be damned.

FrankMurphy

March 13th, 2021 at 1:16 AM ^

Interesting how much opinions vary on this. I like college football OT. I remember the bad old days of ties. It always felt like the game was being aborted. Neither team walked off the field happy. It felt unnatural. In the '92 season, we technically went undefeated, but we had ties in three games (Notre Dame, Illinois, and Ohio State). Even though we won the Rose Bowl that year, a season in which a full 25% of our games (half of them rivalry games) effectively didn't count felt weirdly unsatisfying.

I have a lot of issues with the way college football is run, but I think they got it right with overtime. I wish the NFL would follow the college model. Barring the most extraordinary of circumstances, a game should never end in a tie.

 

Wallaby Court

March 12th, 2021 at 4:52 PM ^

I think this would be a silly change. I understand that the goal is to prevent interminable overtimes, but there are better ways to do that.

A better solution would be to prohibit kicking. Teams must go for it on all fourth downs and can only attempt two-point conversions. Overtime already deviates from the ordinary rules of the game. Eliminating kicks is just more one step down that path. Without the option to kick, teams must face more high leverage situations. Higher leverage means higher consequences and increases the odds of one team falling short.

atticusb

March 12th, 2021 at 4:56 PM ^

I read this as something to do with rules for off-topic posts during CFB season... then shrugged my shoulders guiltily as I remembered we're a basketball school now...

aa_squared

March 12th, 2021 at 5:21 PM ^

SUDDEN DEATH.....Forget all about we need this, they need that....blah, blah, blah....Visiting team gets the ball first as a courtesy of the home team, even if the visitor is #1.

Stop the marathons for money.

gobluemike

March 12th, 2021 at 6:09 PM ^

Why can’t ot just be an extra quarter, possibly with a shorter duration, similar to basketball? Seems like a simple solution and maintains similar game strategy. 

60blue

March 12th, 2021 at 7:51 PM ^

Can't remember where I heard this but I always liked:

  1. Start on the 35
  2. Teams get equal attempts but after every score, the next team starts 5 yards further back
  3. Once starting position is 50 yards or further, sudden death scoring  

Always felt easy to understand and follow along while balancing the need to move the ball and keeping talented kickers a factor in the game.