The end of an Ohio State football game is changing the rules of college football.
On Friday, the NCAA Football Rules Committee proposed a change that will give offenses the option to reset the game clock in the final two minutes of each half if the defense commits a too many men on the field penalty and the extra defender or defenders participate in the play. If the additional player or players are attempting to leave the field and have no impact, there will still be no clock adjustment.
The Dan Lanning rule: pic.twitter.com/oYpKsASKjW
— Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) February 28, 2025
With 10 seconds left and the Buckeyes trailing by one point at Oregon on Oct. 12, an extra Duck defender ran on the field right before the snap of the ball on an Ohio State 3rd-and-25. After an ensuing incompletion and too-many-men-on-the-field penalty against Oregon, the Buckeyes moved the ball forward 5 yards but lost a crucial four seconds on the clock as it is considered a live-ball foul.
Those seconds proved vital the next play when quarterback Will Howard slid down a second too late for his team to call a timeout and attempt a game-winning field goal in a 32-31 loss. Oregon head coach Dan Lanning didn't directly confirm the penalty maneuver was intentional when asked afterward, but he stopped a step short.
"There was a timeout before that," Lanning said the Monday after the game. "We spend an inordinate amount of time on situations. There's some situations that don't show up very often in college football, but this is one that obviously was something that we had worked on. So you could see the result."
Ohio State more than got its revenge with a 41-21 Rose Bowl victory over the Ducks in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals, but the NCAA is still ensuring coaches can't game the rulebook in such ways in the future.
Other proposed rule changes by the committee include a charged timeout for medical staff coming onto the field to evaluate a player after the ball is spotted, with a 5-yard delay of game penalty if that player's team is out of timeouts. The change is meant as a deterrent for teams to fake injuries and slow offenses down. The committee also recommended an adjustment to the number of timeouts teams get in overtime, with just one timeout total given for any overtime periods after the second overtime.
Those, the too-many-men adjustment and other minor changes will be sent to schools for review before the NCAA's playing rules oversight panel meets to approve or deny the changes in April.
