College football always needed to limit the length of replay reviews, and for 2020 — if we do have a season — that limit will be two minutes.
It is a good change. It was a needed change. When we get back to normal football in 2021 (hopefully), this change will serve college football well.
Yet, in a pandemic, merely having a time limit to replay reviews is an incomplete solution. We have to remember that pandemic football is not regular football.
Replay review in 2020 — a pandemic season, if we have one — will need to go beyond mere time limits.
Replay reviewers will need to exercise prudential judgment.
We can all accept that in a pandemic, it is in the best interests of everyone — chiefly the athletes — to have shorter games. Rule and policy changes such as the time limit on replay reviews are part of this process.
Officials can exercise common sense where rules don’t fill in all the gaps and account for every scenario.
Because we don’t have a running clock in college football — a dumb oversight in a pandemic season — officials will need to find other ways to be creative in shortening games. The most obvious way they can do this is not as complicated as one might think.
Guess. Guess how officials can swiftly administer games without using the rule book directly.
The answer is plain: Simply disregard the use of replay in huge blowouts, especially in second halves.
The score is 42-3 in the third quarter. The score is 28-3 with 10 minutes left in regulation. The score is 24-6 with three minutes to go.
A five-yard pass at midfield might have been caught. It might not have been caught.
Do we go to the booth for a review?
In normal football, yes. Observe the process, because no one has anything better to do or anywhere else to go. Officiating — in NORMAL circumstances — requires applying the rules even if it means staying for four hours instead of calling it a day at 3:25.
Pandemic football, though, isn’t normal.
Move it along. Get the players and coaches — and the refs, too! — out of there.
Fewer replay reviews? In normal football, no.
In pandemic football? Yes. For the safety of everyone.