New, Subtle Rules Introduced in 2015 College Football Season

College football season is just over one week away from opening kickoff. While fans get familiar with the new faces aligned with their favorite programs, coaches and players and Division I-FBS are taking the time to learn new rules in place for 2015. This season’s changes are among the lightest in recent memory. Unlike previous years that have featured overhauls of the rulebook, the regulations this year won’t be nearly as visible to fans or even to the way the game is played. Among the rule changes this season are: • Introduction of a center judge, bringing the officiating crew from seven members to eight • Overbuilt facemasks are illegal • Players using illegal equipment must leave the game for one play and may not return until his equipment is made legal • Pulling or pushing opponents off a pile is punishable by an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty • Blocking during onside kicks is now eligible for instant replay review • New rules for resetting the play clock National Coordinator of College Football Officiating Rogers Redding has partnered with the National Football Foundation to promote fluent understanding of these new rules amongst officials in all conferences. Although most of the regulations are self-explanatory, guidelines for resetting the clock require more than a cursory glance. “The committee was concerned that the play clock was getting too deep into the count before the officials reset it,” Redding explained. “Instead of it being 25 seconds into the clock, it’s now 20 seconds and the officials just reset the clock.” This rule comes into play whenever officials have difficulty getting a new ball from the sidelines. If a defensive player has his helmet dislodged, the game clock will still be stopped and the player must be removed for one play, but the play clock will now be set to 40 seconds instead of 25 seconds. The ball-change contingency will be seldom used, but Redding believes the rule is necessary anyway. “The rule is to cover the extreme cases where they really need to stop the game clock and deal with something on the sideline. We may go all year and never have to use this rule at all.” Officials

will have one more set of eyes on the field in 2015. The Big 12 experimented with an eight man team. The test demonstrated positive results, so the rule has been changed after 30y years at a seven man cap. “It’s going to help control the middle. This is an idea whose time seems to have come very quickly. Everybody in FBS this year will be using eight officials,” Redding said. “It’s a response to the way the game has changed—the up-speed and spread offenses. We were putting a lot more responsibility on the head linesman and line judge to have things to do at the line of scrimmage.” The center judge will wear the letter “C” on the uniform and be positioned in the offensive backfield opposite the referee. Just as play calling and gameplay are constantly evolving, so are the rules that govern the sport. Officials are pleased with the state of the sport right now, but there’s always room for improvement even if it’s hardly visible to the untrained eye. To hear comments from Redding, click below.