A swing and a miss for the rules committee. That makes it two years in a row. Why do these jack asses keeping messing with the clock rules??? Keep the rules the same, if the networks think games are too long stop selling so much damn commercial air time. The commercialism is getting up to European Soccer levels where everything including the ball is for sale. College football pulls enough of an audience to leave the rules alone. Other than that the horse collar is good and necessary as well as the chop block clarification. Don't care about the kick off out of bounds penalty change, but it is stupid to change the facemask rule. This only encourages the officials to make more 15 yard personal foul face mask calls. Why not allow discretionary calling on this for varying degrees of eggregiousness? I don't want a 15 yarder changing the outcome of a game because there was some contact but not enough to make a difference, where the official feels like he has to make a call. Also like the challenge change.
I like the idea of using a 40-second clock to regulate the time between snaps. However, starting the clock after the ball goes out of bounds is ridiculous. I also hope they get rid of the 15 second clock after a commercial timeout because Mack apparently did not get that memo this past year. The chop block and horse collar rules are a good addition as is the extra challenge when you dont lose the previous (imo, you should not lose your challenge flag until you lose a challenge). -"Instant replay would be allowed on fumbles leading to immediate recoveries." This seems like it would be very vague and lead to a few questionable calls. Too bad they did not have that last year for aTm vs Fresno St....... oh wait, they home cooked some made up rules to benefit the aggies.
I think that fumble replay rule means you can review it if the whistle didn't blow until after the recovery was made and the play was dead, unlike a potential fumble that is called down by contact while players are still scrambling for the loose ball.
So if the five yard face mask goes away, then a swing and miss that grazes the mask becomes a fifteen yarder? Not all face masks are the same. A barely grab and release facemask is different from riding a guy down with his head turned backwards.
