NCAA Playing With Fire: Unintended Consequences

3-2-5-E is such a dirty word.

Somehow NCAA coaches were caught sleeping when they passed the rule that allowed for various changes in clock-starting procedure.  The intended effect was to shorten the length of games.

For the NCAA it was Mission Accomplished.

However, there's been a good deal of fan and coach outrage about it, as it has cost teams plays and possessions.  It's documented (latest update: an average of 15 minutes saved at the cost of 16 plays).

The great thing about the NCAA's shortsightedness is it's the gift that keeps on giving.

They can enact measures that annoy their most loyal customers and coaches without ever caring about it up in Indianapolis.  They're simply one of those monolithic and aloof organizations that often needs moments of public shame to correct wrongs.

Luckily there is one thing that helps get their attention: money.

And guess what? Someone else is making a lot of it because of the new rule change: bookies (H/T: Deadspin).  Thanks to the extra five to twenty minutes skimmed from the end of certain games, betters are now presented with rare opportunities to reinvest winnings beween games and bookies are making a killing from it.

Law of Unintended Consequences, anyone? 

Do you think the NCAA is happy about someone else making large sums of money off its D-I football honeypot, particularly if they're profiting thanks to a new rule change aimed at broadening the sport's fan base and thus its profitability for the NCAA and not those who don't have marketing and licensing agreements with the organization?  Nope.  Plus, it's gambling money and the NCAA wants to keep its hands as clean as possible from the taint of gambling and the lure of fixed games.

Of course, they could do a good thing and loosen up restrictions on athlete compensation and remove a great deal of enforced poverty, thus reducing the temptation for some athletes to you know, fix games, steal, do other harm to society, accept free groceries delivered on one's doorstep or do the whole alleged Reggie Bush thing.  But that would just make sense, and I'm digressing...

If anyone in Indianapolis catches wind that bookies are profiting off their misguided and unpopular rule change, you can hopefully count on rule 3-2-5-E being terminated the moment this season ends.

Hopefully.

Comments

[Stephen Kim]

It annoys me to see the clock running on a change of possession. The idea that a team has to call a timeout to stop the clock after getting the ball back is insane.