The national coordinator of college football officials handed down a rule interpretation Wednesday meant to close the loophole Oregon exploited in its victory against Ohio State by giving the offensive team the choice to reset the game clock if the defense plays with 12 or more players in the final two minutes of either half.
On Saturday, Oregon seemed to intentionally use 12 players on what proved to be the second-to-last play of its 32-31 win against the Buckeyes in an attempt to drain the clock. While the Ducks were penalized on the ensuing incomplete pass, the four seconds coming off the clock were more beneficial to Oregon than the 5-yard penalty was to Ohio State.
The Buckeyes were still out of field goal range. They ran one more play, snapping the ball with six seconds left in the fourth quarter, but ran out of time.
“Football is a very dynamic game,” coordinator of officials and NCAA secretary rules editor Steve Shaw said in a statement. “Occasionally there are specific situations where committing a penalty can give a team an advantage. A guiding principle of the NCAA Football Rules Committee is that there should be no benefit when a team commits a penalty. The goal of this in-season interpretation is to eliminate a potential clock advantage for committing a substitution foul and take away any gain for the defense if they violate the substitution rule.”
Using a previously approved rule meant to penalize teams for committing “a blatant and obvious unfair act designed to take time off the clock,” the rules committee approved a new interpretation of end-game substitution fouls.
“After the Two-Minute Timeout in either half, if the defense commits a substitution foul and 12 or more players are on the field and participate in a down, officials will penalize the defense for the foul and at the option of the offended team, reset the game clock back to the time displayed at the snap,” the interpretation read. “The game clock will then restart on the next snap. If the 12th defender was attempting to exit but was still on the field at the snap and had no influence on the play, then the normal substitution penalty would be enforced with no clock adjustment.”
The 5-yard penalty will be assessed no matter what, but the choice to reset the game clock will be made by the offense. The idea behind that, Shaw said, was that there could be a late-game situation in which the offense determines time coming off the clock is to its benefit.
The “blatant and obvious unfair act” rule (9-2-3 II) was developed in response to a defensive team intentionally trying to draw holding or pass interference fouls late in games to burn time while trying to protect a lead. In that case, the foul, if deemed intentional, is upgraded to a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct.
Shaw said the rules committee came to the conclusion that determining whether a team intentionally used 12 or more defensive players would be difficult for officials, and because the resetting of the clock is the more important element, it was not necessary to upgrade the illegal substitution foul to an unsportsmanlike conduct.
“It’s hard to judge the intent,” he told The Athletic.
Oregon coach Dan Lanning on Monday stopped just short of truly confirming the Ducks intentionally used a 12th defender on the penultimate play against Ohio State.
“We spend an inordinate amount of time on situations,” Lanning told reporters, with a bit of a smirk on his face. “There are some situations that don’t show up very often in college football, but this is one that obviously was something we had worked on. So, you can see the result.”
Ohio State faced a third-and-25 from the Oregon 43 with 10 seconds left in the fourth quarter and the Ducks leading by one. Oregon called a timeout but seemed to have difficulty getting its defensive personnel back on the field.
The play went off with the Ducks having 12 players on the field and resulted in an incomplete pass by Will Howard to a well-covered receiver. The 5-yard penalty for illegal substitution gave Ohio State the ball at the 38 with 6 seconds left, still in need of more yardage to have a realistic chance of making a field goal; Buckeyes kicker Jayden Fielding has a career long of 47 yards.
For Oregon, there was no downside to playing with 12 players. The Ducks gained the benefit of making it more difficult for Ohio State to gain the 15-plus yards it needed to get into more makeable field-goal range while gladly trading 5 yards for a few seconds off the clock. If Ohio State had broken off a big play against the 12-man defense, the Buckeyes could have declined the penalty and taken the result of the play.
The Buckeyes ran one more play, but Howard’s 12-yard scramble ended the game.
Lanning’s move drew mixed reactions from other coaches, including Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, whose team has drawn scrutiny for allegedly faking player injuries in an attempt to draw a stoppage of play and disrupt the opposing offense’s rhythm.
“I find all this national talk about someone (faking) an injury, and people shouldn’t do that, I’m not saying I don’t agree with (them),” Kiffin said. “But I just found it interesting that everyone thinks this is awesome that you purposefully went against the rules to put more people on the field, then everyone’s irate when someone has an injury. I just found it interesting.”
Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer, who went 3-0 against Lanning in two seasons as Washington’s head coach, complimented his former Pac-12 rival.
“Hats off to coach Lanning for trying to find a way for his team to win and being creative that way,” DeBoer said.
Georgia coach Kirby Smart, who employed Lanning as an assistant for three years before Lanning became Oregon head coach, sidestepped a question about whether the 12th-man ploy was something the Bulldogs have considered using.
“We try to be as detailed as we can to prepare,” Smart said, “but it’s not something I’d rather comment on.”
— The Athletic’s Seth Emerson contributed reporting.
(Photo: Ali Gradischer / Getty Images)