The NCAA Football Rules Committee is recommending several minor tweaks to the rulebook for the upcoming 2020 season.
Perhaps the most notable of the proposals being advanced is that players who have been ejected for targeting be allowed to remain on the sidelines. Since the rule’s inception, players have normally been escorted to the locker room where they remain until the end of the game.
“In reviewing the trends in targeting, the committee is encouraged and pleased with how the rules have clearly had a positive impact on our game,” said David Shaw, chair of the committee and head coach at Stanford, in a statement. “We are encouraged by the improvements in the way our officials, our coaches and our players have worked to keep our game exciting and make it safer. We will continue to look for ways to improve our approach to targeting, but we strongly believe we are on the right path.”
Among the other ideas advanced by the committee include ensuring no more than two players wear the same number. In addition, they recommend that ‘0' be added to the list of single-digits available to be worn to help this.
Instant replay was also on the docket. A proposed guideline will call for reviews to be completed in less than two minutes (hooray for pace of play). Officials will also be allowed to take “jurisdiction of the contest” 30 minutes earlier than normal in order to limit interactions (i.e. fights) between teams. The proposal calls for them to take over 90 minutes before kickoff as a result.
Otherwise, it was pretty much a low key set of changes proposed. While there was plenty of talk about further rules being tweaked when it comes to the kickoff and targeting, the actual things advanced to the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel was rather limited. That latter group will discuss and approve/deny the changes on April 16.