Checking In on Plays Lost, Time of Games

If you are not familiar with cfbstats, you should be. Marty, the site's administrator, has logged every play of every team from the 2005 and 2006 seasons. Simply put, his database is something the NCAA drools over. For example, did you know Arizona State is a better rushing team on the road in 2006? Or that Louisville running backs are averaging almost two more yards a carry on grass fields compared to turf fields? These are just some of the goodies available. Now Marty is tracking the impact of the controversial rule 3-2-5-e, which is designed to reduce the time of games. As we've stated before, the rule is also reducing the number of plays. Now we've never really heard of anyone complaining about the games being too long, but we've heard many complaints about too many commercials. That is the real problem here, folks. ... Again, if you use any of this information, please credit the great cfbstats. One other note: The time of games is that given by the official scorekeeper.

Overall...G........Plays......Plays/G....Min.......Min/G......Time/G
2005......224.....37527.....167.53.....44923.....200.55.....3:20:33
2006......257.....39035.....151.89.....47625.....185.31.....3:05.19

Here are the five shortest games from Week 4:
Wake Forest-Mississippi: 2:35
Marshall-Tennessee: 2:36
Middle Tennessee State-Oklahoma: 2:43
Indiana State-Northern Illinois: 2:44
Kent State-Bowling Green: 2:44

Here are the five longest games from Week 4:
Iowa State-Texas: 4:17
Notre Dame-Michigan State: 3:31
Hawaii-Boise State: 3:30
Central Michigan-Eastern Michigan: 3:23
Iowa-Illinois: 3:21