NCAA football overtime madness

Settle the tie breaker first

We can easily eliminate the let down of a regulation tie and the stress – not to mention the ruin of dinner plans – created by overtime. Award the tie breaker before the start of the game.

After warm ups, the two teams play a brief tie breaker. With the tie breaker determined, the teams know what they have to do to win the game, and when the final gun goes off, we have a winner and we can all go back and have some fried chicken at the tailgate.

Because it’s before the game even starts and because it will rarely be applied, no one will get too excited about the format. A simple two-point conversion shoot out from the two or three yard line will do. If you require excitement, however, a format borrowed from tennis can be employed – a five point tie breaker.

Manno a manno

In this five point NCAA football tie breaker, each team has five players awarded the football in turn at the 50 yard line. Each team then chooses five tacklers, each restrained in turn behind the 45 yard line. When the runner breaks the fifty yard line, the lone tackler may break the restraining line and the runner and tackler square off one on one. A point is awarded for both stops and touchdowns. First team to five points wins the tie breaker.

If this isn’t exciting enough, the points could be played in pairs at opposite ends of the field.