Of Rules and Nursery Rhymes

Little Miss Muffet

Sat on a tuffet,

Eating her curds and whey;

Along came a spider,

Who sat down beside her,

And frightened Miss Muffet away. - Dr. Seuss

These playful rhymes are to teach our children valuable lessons about life. The more complex our thought process becomes, the more we are able to read into, and understand these youthful tales.  So it is with the NCAA rules committee.

In case you have lived under a rock for the past 96 hours or so, click on this link to see what you have missed. You can then click HERE for the opposing view points. My views are such that even a consideration of this proposal shows a sign of weakness, and lack of intelligent judgement, unless ALL of the facts are properly put in front of you.

I first want to comment that this proposal is proposed in myth, and not remotely connected to fact. I give you two great items to peruse, so that you can be much more informed about this matter than the governing body of college athletics appears to be. First look at this from College Football Matrix. There seems to be some evidence that the intentions on which this proposal was based, are indeed false. Then, I want to give you some more food for your brain with this tidbit from Stat Tiger:

 StatTiger ‏@StatTiger 15h

During the 2013 season FBS offenses avg 71.9 snaps per game. During the 2000 season, it was 70.9. Gee...we need to slow these offenses down.

That is a 14 year window. More than enough data to disprove that the popularity of the so called Hurry Up No Huddle (HUNH) offense really hasn't changed the average number of offensive plays per season in college football.

All of this is to disprove the true reasoning of this proposal, and in fact uncover the outright lie that has been perpetrated by the very people that have proposed the rule change to begin with. 

Years ago the NFL was suffering from poor attendance, and an overall downward view of the game and how it was being played. After reaching out to the fans, the NFL learned some very interesting  things about what fans want from their overall game experience. The biggest surprise? You guessed it, the fans wanted more scoring. More offense. Yes they love to see great defensive play, they just were no longer enamored with three yards and a cloud of dust offense. The NFL acted quickly and changed rules to enhance the offensive ability to be creative thus score more points.

This prompted the NFL to create an entire division of its organization to keep up with the needs of their fans.  

SO WHY THIS PROPOSAL?
Now, to the meat of the issue. How will this change college football? That, after all, is the true issue, is it not?

The rules committee of college football's governing body, the NCAA, is on the verge of undoing all that has been accomplished by college football in the last decade. The absolute king of college sports, and runner up to only a couple of professional sports in total viewership. I can guarantee significant changes will happen to the overall game experience for college football fans.

Longer game times, and the insufferable wait between each play will be lengthened. Already longer than it should ever take, the game would turn into a 5 hour game. Attendance will suffer, and viewership will fall off drastically.

 Facts being facts, one of the so called pace teams this past season had more fans attend games than any other team in college football. That team is Auburn. Auburn plays in a stadium that has not seen expansion in years, and seats around 87,000. Imagine if their stadium had over 100,000 capacity for it's home games like some of the teams that don't run a HUNH offense. 

Little Miss Muffet was scared away from an enjoyable meal, by an annoying little insect. You know how this goes. You get up and move away from the spider, then you look back to check if it's still there. If it is, you will then set down your perfectly enjoyable meal and find something to squash that bug. 
This proposal and the people behind it are exactly that. Annoying little insects, that will cause us the college football fan, to get up and walk away.  We have the squashing device in our hands. Our television remotes. We will simply turn from the channel we were watching, to something else. Bug. Squashed.

These proposed rule changes are ridiculous at their very best. That they are based in lies, is devious, and harmful. If we wanted to watch the same repetitive thing over and over, Bowling would be our #1 sport in attendance and viewership.

We need to collectively send the NCAA our thoughts on this. Contact them thru social media and tell them how you feel about this. On Twitter you can reach them @NCAA . On Facebook they are here: https://www.facebook.com/ncaastudents

To write them or call:
The National Collegiate Athletic Association
700 W. Washington Street
P.O. Box 6222
Indianapolis, Indiana 46206-6222
Phone: 317/917-6222
Fax: 317/917-6888

Let them know how you feel about this proposal before it's too late.
Then pass this along to everyone you know, so they too have all the information needed to make the right decision.