Amidst the varied difference in the setup between high school and college footb- – l, the most crucial is time. Even though most of the rules remain the same, time is something that makes the formats different. Out of high school, college and NFL games, a high school game is the shortest one while college football is the longest game of any major American sport, even longer than the NFL.

Even if the NCAA charts out some reasons to reduce the time, they need to be practical ones that should not be hampering the quality of the games. Looks like there are some doable solutions that college games can try.

How college games stretch beyond 3 hours

Generally, a high school football game lasts between 2 and 3 hours. The entire span of 120-180 minutes is divided into 4 quarters that are 12 minutes each. Once the two quarters are over, the game pauses for half time and it’s for 20 minutes where the marching band comes to the gridiron, to cheer up the team with their musical performance. Other than this the clock will be stopped for timeouts, out-of-bound pays, change of possession, scoring plays, measurements, and many other reasons. But things are different for college footb- -l. 

Going by the NCAA statistics, in college, the average game lasts for around 3 hours and 22 minutes. That beats the NFL’s time which tries to close the game slightly under 3 hours. But you need to understand when you are dealing with the kids, it’s going to take time. In the NFL, the players are professional, and here in college is more about amateurs and their experience. Then what makes it longer than high school, since there too players are new to the play?

That’s because in college there are more replay reviews. The games average about two minutes and there are two reviews per game, which makes to extra four minutes. Plus in college, there is a high-powered passing offense that gives rise to more clock stoppages therefore longer games. Well, there are also some solutions to let go of the extra minutes.  

Practical changes to shorten playtime in college games

Solution 1 is to make all the programs have a run/pass ratio between 45 to 55%. In that case, it has to be ensured that more run plays HAVE to be called. Now let’s explore solution 2, which is to shorten halftime. College football halftime lasts 20 minutes compared to 12 at the NFL level. Have you ever imagined that cutting it by 40% would save 8 COSTLY minutes? 

With this comes getting rid of the clock stoppage on the first downs. Here comes solution no.3 which would cover multiple areas where the college games are losing their pricey time. The clock will not continue to tick off after the offense gains a first down except in the final two minutes of a half. Also, there would be no stoppage after an incomplete pass once the ball has moved on to the next play.

And here comes the last solution. The broadcasting networks would have to cut away commercial breaks. Yes, we get it, that TV commercials can’t be totally gotten rid of but if they can shift to fewer ads and not shove more products into our faces that would trim the lengthy hours. What are your suggestions to make the college games shorter?