Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin recently expressed his frustration with the NCAA’s new clock rules.
These rules, aimed at speeding up college football games, were implemented this offseason, mirroring changes made by the NFL.
The most significant alteration is that the clock no longer stops after a first down, except in the final two minutes of a half, a departure from a long-standing tradition in college football.
“I just don’t understand it,” Kiffin exclaimed in an interview with On3. “People pay to see, they sit down with their family to watch a game, they pay for tickets to go to a game, and we’re going to shorten it?”
“I mean, it’s not like it was broken. And there are a lot of problems that need to be fixed in the world around college football, and running the clock so the games quicker? I don’t get it.”
Kiffin drew a comparison between altering game length in college football and attending a country concert with fewer songs. He stressed that fans invest a significant amount of money to attend games with their loved ones, and college football has never faced the same revenue-related issues that baseball has experienced over the years due to game length.
“You go to a country concert and want to have them sing two fewer songs when you pay for a concert?” Kiffin questioned. “No. So why do you want a game to be shorter? That just does not really show much awareness about what should be getting worked on and fixed around college football, in my opinion.”
Kiffin’s remarks come at a time when the MLB recently implemented a successful pitch clock rule, reducing the duration of baseball games by 20-30 minutes in some cases. While baseball and college football have vastly different fan bases and atmospheres, concerns about the length of games have never been a major issue in college football as they have been in baseball for over a decade.
What do you think about Kiffin’s comments?
How do you feel about the new clock rules?