The 5 Biggest College Football Rule Changes

Daily Five: The Biggest College Football Rule Changes

By CollegeFootballNews.com | August 23, 2018 12:21 pm CT

From the National Football Foundation, here are the biggest rule changes coming to the college football season.

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Taken from the release from the National Football Foundation: The NCAA football rules committee has completed its work on the rules for the 2018 season and has received approval from the Playing Rules Oversight Panel for a number of changes.

Because this is an even-numbered year, the committee was able to consider changes for all aspects of the game. Under the guidelines for the two-year process, only player-safety rules may be changed in odd-numbered years. Here are the 2018 rule changes as summarized by Rogers Redding, the national coordinator of College Football Officiating (CFO).

Again, with write-ups from the National Football Foundation, here are the biggest rule changes for the coming season …

5. Uniform Rules and Cap-Cam

Over the past several years, we have seen a trend in players’ pants getting shorter. This has a safety component as exposing the knees without padding means a risk of knee injuries and lacerations, and it is detrimental to the look of the game.

In 2017, the rules committee declared that beginning this year, the legal uniform will include knee pads in the pants with the knee pads and pants completely covering the knees.

Officials are mandated to enforce this rule strictly by not allowing players to be in the game with pants that do not completely cover the knees. Uncovered knees indicate illegal equipment: players must leave the game for at least one down, and they may not return until the equipment is legal.

TV Camera on Officials
For many years, the rules have allowed the umpire to wear a small TV camera (no audio) on his or her cap. Based on experiments during one of the bowl games, this year the rule has been expanded to allow any official to wear such a “cap-cam,” subject to the approval of the two teams and the official’s conference.