College football OT rules: Explaining sport’s extra period, including 2-point conversions

Sometimes in college football, 60 minutes isn’t long to determine a winner.

Over the years, some of the sport’s most thrilling and memorable games went into overtime. It’s inherent to the sport’s charm and its occasionally chaotic nature.

Even for fans of the sport, overtime in college football can require some explanation. The rules for the extra period at the college level are drastically different than they are in the NFL, which uses just a single 10-minute period. To add to the confusion, the college rules have been tweaked in several noticeable ways in recent years, too.

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In the opening weeks of the 2024 college football season, several high-profile games have already gone into overtime, raising some questions for fans nationally who are following along with the action.

Here’s what you need to know about college football’s overtime rules:

How does overtime work in college football?

For a sport with a history dating back to 1869, the concept of overtime is a relatively new one.

Prior to 1995, if a game was deadlocked at the end of regulation, it simply ended as a tie. After being used for the bowl games at the end of the 1995 season, overtime was implemented across the FBS for the ensuing 1996 season.

The concept of overtime in college football is the same as it is in the NFL, with the team that scores the most points in the extra period winning the game. Beyond that, though, there are few similarities.

In stark contrast to the NFL, each team in college football is guaranteed at least one possession. Those drives begin not with a kickoff and return, but at the opposing team’s 25-yard line. Because of that arrangement, a team is in position to score even if it fails to gain a yard, though the unreliability of…


Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/college-football-ot-rules-explaining-214353264.html

Author : IndyStar | The Indianapolis Star

Publish date : 2024-09-07 21:43:53

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