College Football Has Another Gift To Give The NFL

A decade or more ago, I started watching college football during the bowl season in late December/early January, and came to realize that there were some key differences between it and the NFL (which I'd already been following for years at that point). The one that stood out for me initially was the 2-point conversion option following a touchdown. I thought that was a great innovation that increased the scenarios through which a team could come back if they'd gotten off to a slow start. The possibility of converting a touchdown into 8 points, rather than just 7, seemed like a no-brainer for the NFL. And sure enough, that little gem was introduced to the professional league not too long afterward.

This year, as I watched the GMAC Bowl go into double overtime before a winner was crowned, I got thinking about how much I prefer college football's tie-breaking setup over what the NFL uses. In the big leagues, overtime is truly sudden death, as the first team to score in O/T wins. Unfortunately, since football is a sport in which scoring is usually restricted to the team with the ball, this gives a huge advantage to whichever team begins the extra quarter with possession of the ball. That starting possession, in turn, is decided by a coin flip.

That right: a flip of a coin!

I've always disliked the arbitrariness of that rule in the NFL, and think that it's absurd that game outcomes - even in the playoffs - are left so much to chance.

In college football these days, they employ a very different strategy to settle their tied games. Each team gets a turn starting with the ball on the opponent's 25-yard line, and they maintain possession until they either run out of downs (i.e. fail to make a 1st down) or score. If the two teams achieve the same number of points in an overtime period, then another period is added on. By the third overtime (I believe), any team scoring a touchdown has to attempt a 2-point conversion. They can't simply go for the single point that's awarded for kicking the ball through the uprights. This enhancement makes it even less likely that the two teams will continue to match each other's results for very long.

What I love about this solution is that both teams have just as much chance to win, because there's no arbitrary nature to it. Also, there are almost countless permutations around what the 2nd team will do based on what the 1st team achieved in their attempt. And finally, because they start so deep in the other team's territory, the overtime periods tend to be very quick. It's actually quite a brilliant approach, and I think the NFL would be crazy not to incorporate it.