No, college football’s new two-minute warning isn't adding extra TV timeouts

Faculty soccer followers have lengthy considered the video games’ tv timeouts as a scourge. The official carrying a purple hat who takes the sphere at every industrial break, holding up play for a preset period of time earlier than the broadcaster can return to the motion, has change into a universally hated character, together with by yours actually.

Though broadcasters and information present the TV timeouts haven’t elevated, the best way they’ll wreck sport move is clear to anybody who watches a sport. We simply need to see soccer.

So when the NCAA added a two-minute warning (we’re not calling it a “two-minute timeout,” as Saturday’s broadcasters did) earlier this yr, the response from many followers was that this was merely a ploy so as to add yet one more TV timeout whereas different rule modifications attempt to lower performs. On the time, officers stated that was not the case. The 2-minute warning was meant to assist sport move by offering a set level for a scheduled TV timeout, so broadcasts wouldn’t should cram them in at inopportune occasions to fulfill their quotas. The 2-minute warning’s presence would make the dreaded touchdown-commercial-kickoff-commercial sequence a rarer state of affairs. (It will additionally assist sport officers now that many guidelines change within the remaining two minutes, together with the clock stopping on first downs.)

Week 0’s 4 FBS video games provided a primary have a look at the two-minute warning in faculty soccer. Many followers on social media, a few of whom had solely discovered of the brand new rule through the sport, expressed their displeasure through the Georgia Tech-Florida State sport specifically, once more blaming the change for what felt to them like a rise in timeouts.

So I went by way of the tape. The decision: The 2-minute warning didn’t add any further TV timeouts. Week 0 simply had some uncommon video games.

For background, most faculty soccer video games have a TV timeout format of 3-4-3-4 or 4-4-4-4 for the variety of industrial breaks in every respective quarter. The size of these breaks is determined by the broadcaster and quarter however ranges from 2:00 to three:20 typically. Generally an additional 30-second spot or two is thrown in. Pull out your stopwatch throughout a sport, and also you’ll see the time of every break adheres to the predetermined format all the way down to the second.

The Georgia Tech-FSU sport was a 3-4-3-4 sport on ESPN, with three TV timeouts within the first and third quarters and 4 breaks within the second and fourth quarters. That’s precisely the way it performed out — however in a irritating sequence. Right here’s the way it broke down:

The Yellow Jackets and Seminoles performed a fast sport with lengthy drives, plenty of runs and simply seven possessions per crew. Per statistician Brian Fremeau, the 14 complete possessions had been the fewest in any FBS sport since 2020.

There have been solely 14 possessions in yesterday’s Georgia Tech vs Florida State sport (seven for every crew), fewer than in any FBS sport performed since November 28, 2020.

— Brian Fremeau (@bcfremeau) August 25, 2024

Because of this, three TV timeouts had been crammed into the ultimate two minutes of sport time: one for the two-minute warning and two for Florida State timeouts stopping the clock. That’s annoying for viewers, groups, followers within the stadium, everybody.

Nevertheless it wasn’t uncommon or totally different from the previous. It was only a bizarre sport as a result of there have been primarily two possessions within the fourth quarter. Georgia Tech scored on the primary play of the quarter, Florida State responded with an 8:24 landing drive, after which Georgia Tech went on a 6:33 drive culminating within the game-winning discipline purpose.

When you’re questioning whether or not viewers would’ve gotten out of that sport with one fewer TV timeout and not using a two-minute warning, the reply isn’t any. The printed didn’t go to industrial when Florida State used its remaining timeout with 55 seconds left. With out the two-minute warning, the quarter’s final industrial break may have gone there. (Or perhaps ESPN would’ve gone to industrial three seconds into the fourth quarter, after Georgia Tech’s landing. Maybe it handed on that chance due to the presence of the two-minute warning later within the quarter).

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When you didn’t like all of the industrial breaks on the finish of Georgia Tech-Florida State, you’re not alone. However issues wouldn’t have gone a lot in a different way in years previous. It was only a bizarre sport.

I additionally checked a second sport. SMU–Nevada on CBS Sports activities Community was a 4-4-4-4 sport that really ended up being 4-4-3-5: The printed took 5 TV timeouts within the fourth quarter as a result of there have been simply three within the third. Each TV timeout in that sport lasted precisely two minutes. (There was a further 30-second break late within the first quarter after a landing, an choice CBS has exercised previously for SEC video games.)

So no, the two-minute warning isn’t including further TV timeouts. It might not all the time be noticeable, however it’ll assist sport move earlier in quarters, when broadcasters will really feel much less strain to leap to industrial. However each time that stoppage arrives with two minutes left, followers are nonetheless going to be sad.

When you don’t like the concept of the two-minute warning in any respect, that’s comprehensible. I requested SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee in regards to the first expertise this weekend, and he stated it wasn’t a significant adjustment. In case your crew is forward, you received’t prefer it. When you’re behind, you’ll prefer it. It gives slightly extra time for a comeback.

However no one likes commercials in video games; the distinction between this summer season’s Olympic basketball motion and a typical stoppage-loaded NBA or faculty basketball sport was a reminder that broadcasts will be extra pleasurable for followers if the individuals operating the present actually need them to be. And in faculty sports activities, the place the printed cash paid for by these commercials has reshaped all the pieces and destroyed conferences, followers understandably have some further animosity for the individuals who hold sending the sport to industrial.

Because the season wears on, maybe the two-minute warning’s contribution to sport move might be extra apparent in pass-heavy video games with plenty of possessions. This variation is designed to forestall back-to-back industrial breaks, which even the broadcasters dislike. So once we hit the two-minute warning subsequent Saturday, know you’re not getting further commercials. You’re simply getting the traditional annoying quantity.

(Photograph: Charles McQuillan / Getty Pictures)