Giger: Hypocrites are coming for college football, and they think we're stupid

ALTOONA, Pa. -- Expand the playoff! Expand the playoff! Play more games! Extend the season!

That's what everybody has wanted, right?

Has it ever really mattered to anybody that, to win a national championship in a 12-team playoff, most teams would have to play at least 16 games in a season? It could even be 17 games under some circumstances.

College kids. Playing as many as 17 games. Beating up their bodies even more, week in and week out.

Safety -- as in having to play waaaaay more snaps than ever before -- has never really been a concern or sticking point to expanding the playoff, even if it absolutely should have been.

No, it's all been about giving more teams a chance and the almighty dollar for TV networks.

Now, let me ask you a question: How many of you think college football games are too long?

Yeah, sure, sometimes a random game can drag on and on. Like, you know, when you have to play nine overtimes in perhaps the most awful game that's ever taken place in college football history.

But by and large, who actually has a problem with the length of college football games? Rarely in my nearly two decades of covering the sport or my 40 years of being a fan have I heard many people say, "This game is taking too long and I'm bored."

It's usually the opposite, in fact. If games do bleed past 3 1/2 hours or approach 4 hours, it's usually because the contest is extremely close and there's all kinds of fascinating twists and turns taking place.

The 2016 kick-6 classic between Penn State and Ohio State lasted 3 hours and 32 minutes.

Last season's game against the Buckeyes lasted 3 hours, 39 minutes. Did anybody feel pressed for time during that, even with Penn State losing?

OK, so, here's what happened Monday.

Dellenger added another tweet listing four proposals up for consideration with regards to trying to shorten games:

• 1. Prohibiting consecutive timeouts (ie icing kicks)
• 2. No untimed down at end of 1Q/3Q
• 3. Clock runs after 1st downs except inside of 2 mins in a half
• 4. Clock runs on incompletions once ball is spotted

Now look, there's nothing wrong with 1 and 2. But 3 would be an enormous change to a rule that helps distinguish college football from the NFL. And 4 would be one of the dumbest changes the sport could possibly make.

Who the hell asked for these changes anyway? Because again, unlike the unbelievably boring and way-too-long sport that is Major League Baseball, college football has really never had a problem with games being too boring or lasting way longer than fans want.

The word "manufactured" in the following tweet is the perfect description of this issue.

The only part of college football games that takes way, way, way too long are the number of television commercial breaks that happen far too frequently and seem to last forever sometimes.

But hey, those pay the bills, right? So there's no chance of cutting back on those.

Instead, some geniuses out there are trying to cut back on the stuff that actually matters to fans and is extremely exciting. You know, the actual football action.

When I say geniuses, what I really mean to say is hypocrites.

The changes suggested above are being made, we're told, by people who want to lessen the number of snaps that college football players have to play each week. In theory, fewer snaps would mean fewer chances for injuries.

But these are the same people who, as I mentioned at the outset, don't really seem to care at all that expanding the playoff could mean as many as 17 games to some teams. To these geniuses/hypocrites/greedy idiots, cutting back on 6-8 snaps per game is something worth changing massive rules of the game, while adding 250-300 more snaps for the playoff games is no biggie.

Give me a break.

Player safety is and should be a huge concern, at all times. But any time you hear about proposed changes for player safety, you always have to wonder if there's really some other agenda at play.

In this case, the push to shorten college games isn't really at all about player safety. It's about one thing and one thing only: Fitting the games into TV time slots and not have them go over so that they impact other broadcasts.

That is a real thing, and it's important. Again, because TV does pay the bills in all of this.

But don't be hypocritical about what you're really asking when trying to make such sweeping rules changes. Don't masquerade this as a player safety issue when it's primarily a business issue.

More importantly, don't take away the stuff we actually love when it comes to college football games -- the incredible drama, sometimes which takes up a lot of time -- in an effort to speed up the game so that it fits the allotted TV time slot.

I would suggest cutting back on the damn commercials, because those truly are the primary reason why college football games take so long. But there is no way in the world that will ever happen.

However this shakes out, hopefully the geniuses/hypocrites/greedy idiots will come to their senses and realize that they are trying to solve a problem that really doesn't exist. And when they claim it's in the name of safety, you know they're flat out lying.

GAME TIMES

Here are the game lengths for Penn State's contests in 2022. As you can see, only the Purdue and Ohio State games went much longer than 3 hours and 30 minutes, and those were wild games with lots of scoring. Ten of the 13 games took less than 3:30, including the Rose Bowl.

Again, what are we even complaining about here?

• at Purdue: 3:59
• vs. Ohio: 3:35
• at Auburn: 3:28
• vs. Central Michigan: 3:24
• vs. Northwestern: 3:20
• at Michigan: 3:24
• vs. Minnesota: 3:19
• vs. Ohio State: 3:46
• at Indiana: 3:29
• vs. Maryland: 3:17
• at Rutgers: 3:24
• vs. Michigan State: 3:18
• Rose Bowl vs. Utah: 3:20