Roughly four days following Oregon’s controversial last-minute penalty against Ohio State, the NCAA rules committee has officially made an adjustment to the rules. Steve Shaw, the NCAA Secretary Rules Editor, and the NCAA rules committee collaborated on the reformed rule.
The new rule explanation is specifically in effect when a substitution penalty occurs within the final two minutes of a half. The reformation to the rule reads as follows:
After the two-minute timeout in either half, if the defense commits a substitution foul and 12 or more players are on the field and participate in a down, officials will penalize the defense for the foul and, at the option of the offended team, reset the game clock back to the time displayed at the snap.
“Occasionally there are specific situations where committing a penalty can give a team an advantage,” Shaw said. “A guiding principle of the NCAA Football Rules Committee is that there should be no benefit when a team commits a penalty. The goal of this in-season interpretation is to eliminate a potential clock advantage for committing a substitution foul and take away any gain for the defense if they violate the substitution rule.”
