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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYSJuly 24, 2008Rogers ReddingBIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA THE MODERATOR: We're pleased to have Rogers Redding this morning. ROGERS REDDING: Good morning, everyone. Let me also welcome you to Media Days. This is just the best time of the year there is for all of us. The officials are coming in for our clinic this weekend. We're getting tooled up just like the coaches and teams. It's my joy to be with you this morning and I look forward to talking with you outside and other venues as the day progresses. I'm going to take you through the rules changes this morning and show you a little bit of video in connection with some of them. One of the major changes around the clock this year is the 40-second clock. For all of our lives in college football we've been used to the referee marking the ball ready for play and starting the 25-second clock on every single play. For the first time in the history of college football, that's not going to be the case most of the time. We're going to what's called the 40-second clock. The way it's going to work is when the ball is dead without any signal from the referee, just a dead-ball signal from the covering official, the 40-second clock will start ticking down. So that's the length of time the team will have to put the ball in play. The referee will not declare it ready for play. It will be ready for play when the umpire places the ball on the ground and steps away. There will be many times in the game when we will go to the 25-second clock because of administrative stoppages, if there's a penalty enforcement, a timeout, a media timeout, injured player, dog runs on the field any number of things that will cause us to shut it down and then go to 25 seconds. In those cases, the referee will chop it or start the 25-second clock as he always has in the past. Most of the time the clock will go to 40 seconds after every play, then start clicking down. So that's a major change. Another change with regard to the clock rule is when the ball goes out of bounds. Again, for all of our lives, when the ball has gone out of bounds, the ball carrier go out of bounds, fumble, backwards pass goes out-of-bounds, the clock will stop, and will continue to stop like it always has. Now, instead of starting on the snap, the clock is going to start when the ball is ready for play, when the referee gives the line the clock signal, except in the last two minutes of each half, that is the second quarter and fourth quarter, the clock will start on the snap like it always has. The way to think about this is like a first down. On a first down, we stop the clock and then it starts on the referee's signal. That's going to be the case. When the ball goes out of bounds, the clock will stop and it will start when the referee gives the signal. So those are the two major clock rules that are in play for this year for the first time. The facemask foul, we've played around with this one again this year. For a number of years, we've had a five-yard foul just for grasping the facemask, but not pulling or tugging it. Then the 15 has been for the tug and the twist. This year there is no longer a five-yard facemask foul. This year there will be no longer be a five-yard penalty for a facemask. And so grabbing and releasing or just grabbing and not twisting is not going to be a foul. It will be a foul if the player grabs the facemask, twists it, turns it or pulls it, and that -- it's a safety issue. The coaches on the committee, the rules committee is made up entirely of coaches, the voting members are. And they felt this was not a safety issue with just grasping the facemask. But if it's twisted or turned or pulled, then that will continue to be a 15-yard penalty. There's been some changes in the instant replay. We've expanded a little bit the plays that are reviewable. Scoring plays, if there's a question about whether on a field goal attempt the ball was above or below the crossbar, that is now reviewable. And also it's reviewable as to whether or not the ball was inside or outside the uprights as long as it's below the top of the uprights. We're not going to review it if the ball goes high above the top of the uprights, but it's reviewable if it's within the uprights, inside or outside, and above or below the crossbar. Another couple of plays that are reviewable, we've always had a difficulty with an instant replay if the runner is ruled down on the field, we couldn't review that. The play is dead as soon as he's ruled down. Now if the ball comes out and the ball is recovered in the continuing immediate action following the play, if the runner has been ruled down, the ball comes down, it's recovered, that can be reviewable. That's a little bit of a change as far as the reviewability of plays is concerned. The coach's challenge, the committee felt like there were a couple of situations in Bowl games where the coaches seemed disadvantaged by challenging something that was just obvious to everybody. So the coach's challenge, the coach will continue to have one challenge a game, as long as they have a timeout available to them, but the difference this year is if that first challenge is successful, the coach retains that challenge and may use it again one more time. There's a potential for two challenges during a game. That gives the coaches a little more flexibility around challenging a play that is reviewable under the instant replay rules. Player safety continues to be a major concern of the rules committee. This is not a new rule. But the rule around the contact a player in the helmet area or contact with the helmet has been revised to sort of strengthen the language. And so as you can see on the screen, what it says is that it is illegal to target and initiate contact against an opponent with the crown of the helmet. That's more dangerous to the deliverer, to the tackler, because the head gets shoved down between the shoulders. So the crown on the helmet... And this notion of targeting is just what it sounds like. There's always gonna be the standing tension between football as a collision sport, the tough game that we all love on the one hand, and trying to protect the safety of the players on the other, especially as players get bigger and faster and stronger. It's changed the nature of the game. So a lot of things have been taken out of the game the last many years in terms of because of safety, and so the notion of a player targeting another player, leaving a calling card, trying to inflict injury, that sort of thing, is one that's of major concern to the rules committee and to the commissioners and many coaches. The second part of the rule talks about targeting a defenseless opponent above the shoulders. I'm going to show a couple of pieces of video here. You'll see some examples of the kinds of things that should be called. (Video Shown.) ROGERS REDDING: Well, those are a couple of examples of the kinds of plays that are very dangerous and need to be attended to. There is a new rule, having to do with player safety. It's the so-called horse collar tackle. What the rule says is that it's gonna be illegal to immediately pull a runner down if you grab by the inside collar of the jersey or the shoulder pad or the back of the jersey or shoulder pad and pull the player down. Again, we have a couple of pieces of video. The first one you'll see is a foul because the runner is immediately pulled down. The second one is not a foul because he grabs his shoulder and kind of rides him to the ground over a couple or three yards. Let's take a look at these videos. (Video Shown.) ROGERS REDDING: Sportsmanship and player behavior on the field tends to be a concern of the committee. So this year there's not new rules around this, but an emphasis on the part of the committee on the part of the officials to taunting, to baiting, to kind of these sort of these choreographed behavior issues on scoring plays or whatever. So we've got, I think, two or three short videos to illustrate the kinds of things that need to be called. (Video Shown.) ROGERS REDDING: The other piece that's involved with the sportsmanship, game management, what used to be the sideline warning, the coaches on the committee said let's don't give a free warning anymore. So it's a five-yard penalty from the get-go. Last year if we would have thrown a flag for a sideline warning, that will be a five-yard penalty. If we ever get to three and four, those will be 15 yards each. So that is the major changes. I will call attention to the fact that on the table out here where there's several items of interest, there is a one-page summary, front and back of one sheet that I prepared, that summarizes the rules changes. You may want to pick one of those up. THE MODERATOR: Rogers, thank you. End of FastScripts |
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