What Football Rules Would You Change?

Every year I see things in the game of football that ought to be changed, to improve the game, make it move faster, and the games last shorter. Here are a couple of mine, please add yours:



1. Eliminate the false start penalty, or at least throw the flag but don't stop action until after the play. I really hate this rule, it ruins the game in my opinion. Change the rule that ten players must be stationary for one second before the snap (one player in motion). If a lineman lifts his hand or wiggles his behind, the QB must simply wait for him to hold his stance for a full second, then hike the ball. What difference does a false start make anyway? it certainly gives nobody any advantage, so let the guy reset, and keep the game moving.



2. An automatic ejection from the game for a hit to the head on receivers, runners and QBs. No excuse for this, it's dangerous, and there is plenty of body left to tackle without going for the head. I would eject the player, impose the 15 yd penalty, and warn the coach, if it happens again during the game, 3 points goes on the board for the other team.



3. Eliminate the offensive holding penalty. All the lineman grab and hold anyway, the defensive lineman can hold, so let the offensive linemen do the same. It won't change anything because it happens on almost every play anyway, but it will speed up the game and is one thing the officials don't have to waste time watching. Holding a receiver would still be a penalty.

15 yard penalty on a team that has a helmet come off during a play.

hawkwing wrote:
15 yard penalty on a team that has a helmet come off during a play.

We'd be the most penalized team in college football! Talk about negative yardage!

Oooh, how about we eliminate fair catches!



And instead of a coin toss, we have two guys playing steal the bacon for the ball!



And you can put a nickname on your jersey instead of your name!

More seriously, though, I don't like the rule that you can't advance an onsides or muffed kick. I'd get rid of that. And I'd get rid of that stupid "intent to deceive" penalty.

Right now, I'd make three four changes:



Pass Interference should be a spot foul like the NFL.



Ball-carriers need to be touched down like the NFL.



More lenience on late hits out-of-bounds. Sometimes players are not clearly out of bounds and the whistle has not yet blown, but if the defense plays as if it's a live ball, they inevitably get flagged. I think official should be directed to call the penalty as follows: if the ball-carrier is running more parallel to the sideline, only call the personal foul if the player is hit after taking his second step out of bounds or the after the whistle has blown. If the ball-carrier is running more perpendicular to the sideline, call the personal foul after the player has made his first step out of bounds or after the whistle has blown. Anything in between is a judgement call. It's football--the ball carrier looks like they were ready for the hit, then the ref should just swallow the whistle.



I'd be opposed to all the changes suggested in the OP though.



EDIT: One more--Receivers need to have both feet in bounds like the NFL.

runbyu1 wrote:

15 yard penalty on a team that has a helmet come off during a play.

We'd be the most penalized team in college football! Talk about negative yardage!

I bet we would discover in 1 game that our helmets mysteriously stopped coming off. Because our bone headed players would actually start doing up their straps tightly.

hawkwing wrote:

hawkwing wrote:
15 yard penalty on a team that has a helmet come off during a play.

We'd be the most penalized team in college football! Talk about negative yardage!

I bet we would discover in 1 game that our helmets mysteriously stopped coming off. Because our bone headed players would actually start doing up their straps tightly.

Same thing with ejections for head hits.



You make it a black & white line. You target the head you're gone. Players would adjust their style real quick. They'd start tackling more and going for the big hit less.

Mandatory colored turfs. Preferably neon. We need more Boise States.

Dead ball personal fouls for 15 yards. I hate those. If a defense makes a critical stop or the offense makes a great play, let it stand. The penalty should be that the player is sent off for the next 3 plays from scrimmage and can't be replaced. Kind of like a hockey powerplay.

College football is the only level of football where intentional grounding adds no additional yardage to the penalty. I'd add five yards from the spot, otherwise the qb has nothing to lose by throwing it away if he's gonna be sacked.

I don't have any changes to proposed, but I did find out just this last week that intentional spikes to stop the clock and the kneel down are passes and rushed credited to the "team" that way a players stats aren't negatively impacted.



That was a very good rule change.

coachK wrote:
The penalty should be that the player is sent off for the next 3 plays from scrimmage and can't be replaced. Kind of like a hockey powerplay.

Off topic, but I'd like to see 30 second power plays in basketball for personal fouls. If the foul was a shooting foul, the instead of 2 shots, the team gets 1 shots plus the ball with a 30 second power play. I know that would make the end of the game flow a little faster.

Y12 wrote:
I don't have any changes to proposed, but I did find out just this last week that intentional spikes to stop the clock and the kneel down are passes and rushed credited to the "team" that way a players stats aren't negatively impacted.



That was a very good rule change.

Didn't know that. I like that.

-Spot foul for pass interference

-False start only counts if the defensive line immediately makes contact with the offensive line. Hence, you have to actually get immediately drawn off sides for it to be a penalty.

-Make touchdowns worth 7 points and eliminate extra points and two point conversions until overtime. They slow down the game too much, a miss rarely makes a difference in the outcome of the game (granted BYU's blocked extra points on Washington and UCLA helped, but we could have won in overtime) and I usually fast forward through them until the next kickoff anyway.

-Ball carrier must be down by contact. If a receiver lays out to catch a ball, he should be able to get up and keep going.

I've watched a couple games of rugby and have really enjoyed watching the scrums. Perhaps replace the coin toss with a midfield scrum at the start of both halves and let them lateral it as far as they can instead of kicking it off. Fewer injuries and shorter fields.



excessive celebration needs to go. i LOVE team celebrations and would love to see more of them. Also, the live-ball taunting foul needs to go, but perhaps it moves to a dead-ball foul , since it doesn't need to turn vicious.



Get rid of holding calls? no way, everyone loves a good sack. This would remove 50% of all sacks from the game at least.

false start? no way. Offensive players have the advantage they know what's going to happen. Defensive players have motion and confusion on their side. It's a nice balance that shouldn't be ruined.

Add more ejections to the game? Offense would be putting their heads down every chance they got to get a defensive starter out of the game.

1 change--implement NFL Rules for CFB. All of them. Same rules for penalties, same rules for feet to make a catch, same possession rules.

Schmoe wrote:
College football is the only level of football where intentional grounding adds no additional yardage to the penalty. I'd add five yards from the spot, otherwise the qb has nothing to lose by throwing it away if he's gonna be sacked.

The intentional grounding is the same as a sack. It's a spot foul and loss of down. If you're whistled for IG on 2nd down it's now 3rd down from where the QB threw it. If you're sacked on 2nd down it's now 3rd down from the QB was sacked. They're essentially the same.

SpiffCoug wrote:

College football is the only level of football where intentional grounding adds no additional yardage to the penalty. I'd add five yards from the spot, otherwise the qb has nothing to lose by throwing it away if he's gonna be sacked.

The intentional grounding is the same as a sack. It's a spot foul and loss of down. If you're whistled for IG on 2nd down it's now 3rd down from where the QB threw it. If you're sacked on 2nd down it's now 3rd down from the QB was sacked. They're essentially the same.

Exactly, so the QB has nothing to lose by throwing it away and hoping he doesn't get called for the penalty, the worst that happens is it gets called, which is the same as a sack, which would have been the result if he hadn't thrown the ball. There needs to be something to actually deter QB's from throwing the ball away.

Schmoe wrote:

Schmoe wrote:
College football is the only level of football where intentional grounding adds no additional yardage to the penalty. I'd add five yards from the spot, otherwise the qb has nothing to lose by throwing it away if he's gonna be sacked.

The intentional grounding is the same as a sack. It's a spot foul and loss of down. If you're whistled for IG on 2nd down it's now 3rd down from where the QB threw it. If you're sacked on 2nd down it's now 3rd down from the QB was sacked. They're essentially the same.

Exactly, so the QB has nothing to lose by throwing it away and hoping he doesn't get called for the penalty, the worst that happens is it gets called, which is the same as a sack, which would have been the result if he hadn't thrown the ball. There needs to be something to actually deter QB's from throwing the ball away.

How often is a blatant IG missed? A QB has very little to gain from risking an IG.