New rules make cut plays out of games

I don't know if anyone noticed, but games have been considerably shorter this season. I actually don't think that it's such a bad thing. TV games last year dragged on to nearly 4.5 hours last season. This season I don't think we've hit the 3.5 hour mark. The new rules definitely shorten games. The question is, how do they affect games. And more importantly, how do they affect the Beavers?

One site has done a study of games from this year in comparison to last season. Here are the results:

The Losses Continue to Pile Up : The Wizard of Odds

Overall...G........Plays......Plays/G....Min.......Min/G......Time/G 2005......488.....82324.....168.70.....97698*....200.61.....3:20:37 2006......531.....80996.....152.53.....99069.....186.57.....3:06.34 * missing game duration of Toledo-Ball State 10/15/2005
Year......G........Points.....Pts/G
2005......488.....25494.....52.24
2006......531.....25069.....47.21

Year.......G.....1H Pts....1H Pts/G...2H Pts....2H Pts/G...OT
2005......488...12842.....26.32......12315.....25.23.......337
2006......531...12985.....24.45......11755.....22.14.......329

Here are the shortest games from Week 9:
Buffalo-Boston College: 2:25
Arkansas State-Florida Atlantic: 2:26
Wyoming-Texas Christian: 2:39
Minnesota-Ohio State: 2:50
Auburn-Mississippi: 2:50

Here are the longest games from Week 9:
Ohio-Kent State: 3:41
Texas-Texas Tech: 3:35
Washington State-UCLA: 3:34
Florida-Georgia: 3:33
Michigan State-Indiana: 3:32

So we're losing an average of 16 plays per game and about 5 points per game. That may not seem like a lot, but it could be huge. The Beavers season could have been affected in two ways.

First, if USC had 16 more plays to score again the Beavers may not have held on for the upset. Who knows how many plays would have been added, but we clearly were helped a little by the new rules.

Second, would the WSU game have gone any different? We may have kicked a FG on 4th down in the game ending drive because we knew that if we held on defense we probably would have got the ball back.

Other than that, it probably hasn't affected OSU much. Clearly the rules change the game. But the real question is: are the changes for the better? I submit yes. I think the games we getting too long and I like the 3.5 hour games. Plus, I like the fact that there will probably be more upsets in a season because the big teams won't have as much time to mount a comeback. Plus, I think the truly good teams will be the best teams because they can't rely on crazy comebacks like UCLA did last season.

What do you think?