How Long is a College Football Game?

Football is widely popular as a great American sport and integral to American physical culture. It dramatically impacts the U.S. economy, and it earns billions of dollars in the form of revenue each year as it is generated. Fans are always happy to make time and excited to watch college football games. Nevertheless, there have been some changes in the duration of college football competitions in this season at the moment. 

So, how long is a college football game? NCAA data indicates that the average length of a college football game is three hours and twenty two minutes on the average. Suspensions, intermissions, commercials on television, with other unpredictable features, all contribute dramatically to the length of a game. 

New to the football world? Let’s dive deeper and understand the basics of college football, how long is a college football game, its timings, special rules, and penalties, also how fit one needs to be to become a part of the football tribe.

Basic Rules of College Football

Ahead of discussing the length of duration of the college football game, let's get to know the basic regulations of the game to follow as we go along.

✧ Football Field Dimensions

American college football is organized on a field 120 yards long and 53.3 yards wide, with 11 players on each squad that plays the competition. The goal of the contest is to carry the football into the opponent's zone of end space for a touchdown and a extra score.

✧ Coin Toss

It's the first thing that happens before the game begins. Both teams elect captains to go to the centre of the field and the referee will ask the away team if they choose heads or tails on the coin. The coin is then flipped in the air, and the away team chooses the side of the coin. If the coin chosen by the away team is correct, this team will decide whether they want to kick or receive or differ the football first. For the next round, the roles are flipped.

✧ Kickoff

The game starts with the kickoff. Whoever wins the toss and then elects to kick the football will line up. One team is going to be lined up in a straight line, and the kicker is in the middle. On the other side of the field, we see the kick return team in a special formation decided by their coaches. When the kicker is ready, he'll kick the football off to the other team. The kick return team will then try to return the ball for a touchdown.

✧ Rules

While watching football on TV, we often see “First and Ten.” So, what is this “First and Ten”? It means that the offense has four chances to get 10 yards. So when we hear “First Down,” “Second Down,” and so on, we can relate those to chances. First Down means this is the team’s first chance to move the ball past 10 yards to get a new set of downs.

✧ Scoring

If the player scores a touchdown, it is worth 6 points for the team. To score these points, the players need to cross the goal line. The numbers on the field go from 50 to all the way 10, and then we see a big white line. Players need to cross this line with the football in order to score a touchdown. When the referee pulls his hands up in the air, we know it's a touchdown for the offense.

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✧ Punting

If a team is failing to push the ball 10 yards on first down, second down and third down, we will often see teams kick the soccer on fourth down. Teams also have the alternative of getting their punter on the field if they are a far away from a kickoff to start the game. It means that the offensive team will have their football kicker take the field of play. The football player is in hand with the football and kicks it out. This is called a punt.

The punt is through the air out to the punt return team. This is a method for the offense to change field location so that they can throw the soccer from their areas to the opponents' zones from which they are throwing the ball. They do this to play defense and hopefully getting the ball back.

Basic Timing of the Game

How long a college football game will last determines a number of factors. Under the new college football rules, the total length of a game is 3 hours and 22 minutes. The actual duration of the game is only 60 minutes, with each session consisting of 15 minutes of duration in length.

Tournament time is not set in stone. The game will be constantly growing longer as a result of fumbled passes, overruns, suspensions, and more. Intermission usually lasts about twenty minutes of time. It is an opportunity for team players to adjust their tactics and trim their stamina down. For this reason, the real length of a college soccer competition tends to be longer than the prescribed time.

Special Rules for Overtime

If the regular season game is tied, it goes to overtime. Each team is permitted to take no more than one timeout in overtime. One team is authorized to hold the ball until a fumble, offensive possession is completed, or a point is scored at the end of the offensive quarter.

In the second period of overtime, teams, after scoring a touchdown, must try for a two-point conversion.

Fouls and Penalties

In order to safeguard the impartiality of the competition, the referee will show a yellow flag as a caution when a player's movement is too big or the rules have been contravened out of order. As such, we often observe referees on the pitch waving yellow flags to warn participants of the regulations of the match in soccer tournaments on the playing ground at all events there. This flag means a penalty on the offense or the defense. There are two types of penalties:

• Offensive Penalties
• Defensive Penalties

Offensive fouls are plays in which a player on the offensive side of the ball prevents the defense from shoving the ball by grabbing an opposing player's tackle or jersey. There are three major types of this unfair blocking behavior:

• Pre-Snap Penalty
• During The Play
• After The Play

Defensive fouls consist primarily of interference with the passing team, blocking an offensive player from making a reasonable catch, excessively rough play, and violations of the defensive position regulations. 

Physical Requirements of Athletes

A high intensity adversarial sport, soccer requires frequently high speed sprints, sharp stops and turns, powerful shootings and scrambling by athletes. These high-intensity maneuvers take a tremendous toll on the physical body, in particular the knee in general, and the knee joint in particular. Knee injuries such as ACL tears, meniscus injuries and ligament sprains are frequent injuries for players, and in severe circumstances can even lead to career breaks.

In order to protect the knee joint and reduce sports injuries, athletes should not only be more cautious, which should also involve picking the right kind of protective equipments. High-quality knee brace for soccer will provide all-around protection for the knee and allow the players to be safer during the competition that can be achieved. We know how long is a college football game; therefore, Fivali's range of knee supports for football helps athletes stay on top of their game by providing long-term support to the knees.

The duration of the college football game is surrounded by a lot of uncertainty, with dozens of factors that can affect the course of the game. As such, players need to be fully prepared for the increased game timeline. Picking the right equipment is an important part of this. Fivali offers a lot of options from football knee braces for linemen and football knee sleeves and hinged knee support to knee braces with velcro straps, tailored solutions for every player's needs.