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Scott Van Pelt took to his podcast, the “SVPod,” to discuss college football’s overtime rules and how they are handled following Auburn’s 43-41 quadruple overtime victory over Texas A&M on Saturday night.
While the overtime period was entertaining and featured plenty of memorable moments, it has caused many to again question the sports’ overtime period format.
College football overtime began in the postseason of the 1995 campaign and was fully introduced into the regular season in 1996.
In 2019, 2-point conversions after a score in the 3rd overtime began to be required. Two years later, that ruling was bumped up to the 2nd OT period, and alternating 2-point tries took place afterwards.
The changes have caused plenty of wacky finishes, and Van Pelt shared his thoughts on how he believes the overtimes in college football need to change:
.@notthefakeSVP has a solution for College Football overtime pic.twitter.com/rLNt2oZBKA
— SVPod (@_SVPod) November 24, 2024
Van Pelt’s main points centered around how teams are able to not move the ball at all and still score points with them starting at the 25-yard line.
“You start at the 25, and you’ve done nothing to earn it,” Van Pelt said. “You could throw 3 incompletions, or heck you could get sacked, and still score. You shouldn’t be able to do nothing and still score.”
He went on to suggest that the rules could have a team start at the 50-yard line instead. This would ensure that another offense would have to truly put together a solid drive to put points on the board, and Van Pelt added that he believes there would be far less lengthy overtimes as a result.
Instead, we have the current format, and Van Pelt believes that the implications of TAMU’s loss are so big that they shouldn’t be determined by such a faulty system.
“A team might have just got knocked out of the Playoff as a result of that,” Van Pelt said.
Current Missouri student entering my third year of covering Tiger football and basketball. Contributor to The Transfer Portal CFB and overall college athletics enthusiast.
