By Carter Byrd
Alright, we saw it. We saw college football’s experiment with extended overtime games…And, oh boy, does it stink—like “spoiled eggs marinating in a dumpster after a week of baking in 100-degree heat” stink.
If you didn’t watch the Illinois-Penn State game, thank your lucky stars. I know you may be kicking yourself for missing “the first 9-overtime game in college football history,” but you saved yourself the agonizing, never-ending horror of those two inept offenses.
Look, the offenses weren’t great in regulation, where both teams accounted for just 20 total points. It was an old-school Big Ten rock fight.
The sad part is, as we went along, the offenses only got more dreadful. Both teams exchanged field goals in the first couple of overtimes, bringing the point total to a blistering 32 total points.
Then…the experiment really began. The new rule states that both teams will proceed with two-point conversion attempts starting in the third overtime until the game is over.
Because who doesn’t love football’s equivalent of penalty kicks? Really, you can’t even say that because, in penalty kicks, teams actually score—like…a lot.
This new system shares the same flaw as penalty kicks. The best team doesn’t always win. All it takes is a couple of lucky plays, and a two-win team can beat a five-win team on the road.
This is precisely what happened on Saturday. Unfortunately, our eyes were burdened with the ultimate pillow fight of all pillow fights as we watched “penalty kick football.” Who knew that an invisible force field prevented teams from crossing the goal line in overtime from just three yards away—yes, nine whole feet?
Consequently, we witnessed a duel between two Big Ten foes with pop guns. They took their ten paces, turned and…POP! Absolutely nothing happened for—to quote LeBron James when he arrived in Miami—not one, not two, not three, not four but FIVE whole overtimes.
Mercifully, Illinois finally found pay dirt in the eighth overtime. In the moment, I began to celebrate what I hoped was the end of this torture chamber of a game…but alas, I celebrated too soon because Penn State answered. Here came the ninth overtime…
In the ninth overtime, the Illini defense held strong before finally ending this agonizing, never-ending football game with a strike to the end zone to win 20-18.
Look, I’ll give Illinois a pass for the agony because the starting quarterback Arthur Sitkowski broke his forearm during the overtime snooze fest, but Penn State? Really? THIS is what you have become on offense?
Even with all the overtimes, Penn State managed just 227 total yards of offense. That’s just grotesque. I cannot believe we let this team fool everyone into believing that they were a College Football Playoff contender.
Back to the overtime rules…Who decided that this was a good idea? All MLB season, I thought that MLB’s new rule of a runner on second base in extra innings was the dumbest “overtime” in all of sports.
Well, I must now inform you that I was wrong. In a genuinely comical way, the NCAA bungled up overtime into a disgusting pile of garbage. Then again, we should expect this from a governing body that has proved to be inept time and time again.
Look, I am all for making overtime more exciting, but re-make it in a way where we can truly let the better team earn the win because this garbage the NCAA shoved down our throats on Saturday wasn’t much better than having a best-of-three (or nine, rather) rock-paper-scissors battle at midfield.
So here is my plea: NCAA, please fix overtime. Hell, undo this stupid rule and go back to what it used to be. Do literally anything other than this because I would rather watch paint dry than watch two abysmal Big Ten offenses fail to get in the end zone over and over…from the three-yard line. If I wanted to watch a penalty shootout, I would watch soccer.
Just fix this damn rule, and let the teams settle the game on the field. Let the best man win.