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College Football/game clock operation

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Expert: - 11/26/2009


Question
My question has a couple parts.  1. does the game clock start when ball is spotted and ready for play or at the snap in high school football.  2. I watched a game recently where a team with no timeouts fumbled in bounds,  defense recovered with 34 seconds left and the clock continued to run.  Should the recovering team had to take a knee to restart clock. 3. does play clock remain in effect with less than a minute to go if team has no time outs?  Thanks for your time

Answer
Dan
Depending upon the state you saw the game depends on which rules are used. Some states (i.e. Texas) use NCAA rules for high school football while most states use National Federation of High School Rules.  I assume you are asking about Federation rules.

The game clock starts on the ready for play, unless the reason the game clock was stopped was because on an incomplete pass, the ball was carried out of bounds, there was a team time out, etc.  So the question one has to ask is "what stopped the game clock?"  

The play situation you speak of: "team with no timeouts fumbled in bounds, the defense recovered the ball with 34 seconds left and the clock continued to run".  In this play once there is a change of possession and the defensive team recovers the inbound fumble, the clock should stop to award the defensive/recovering team a first down and to set the chains. The game clock will then start on the snap and the 25 second play clock starts on the ready for play signal by the referee after the chains were set.

The 25 second play clock remains in effect at all times.

It is possible that in your play situation that if one team was blowing out another team the referee had a running clock to end the game sooner. This is done with agreement of the coaches and the clock runs usually in the last half to keep teams from being embarrassed.  If in the last 34 seconds is the only time the game clock ran, it seems there there may have been a timing error.

Victor Winnek
NCAA Football Official  

College Football

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