After 50 years in the NFL, Bill Belichick is starting his second season as a college coach.
He’d like to harmonize the playing rules at the two levels of football.
“You watch multiple games on Saturday and see one set of rules,” Belichick said Friday at the National Football Foundation’s Bill Dooley Chapter Pigskin Preview, via Kamran Nia of the Raleigh News & Observer. “And you turn on the game on Sunday, and you have a different set of rules.”
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Differences in pro and college rules have existed for decades. Most notably, receivers at the college level only need to get one foot in bounds to make a catch. In the NFL, it’s two. Likewise, defensive pass interference is a 15-yard penalty in college football. It’s a spot foul in the NFL.
More recently, the NFL’s embrace of the electric-football kickoff has yet to be incorporated into the college game.
There are other differences, when it comes to clock management. Only last year did college football add a two-minute warning, but with a less ominous term.
One one hand, it won’t take much to iron out the differences. On the other hand, the differences don’t significantly change the nature of the game. Football is still football, even with some variations.
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It’s unlikely the NFL will adjust its rules to mirror college football. If the NCAA wants to better prepare players, coaches, and officials for the highest level of the sport, it’s for the NCAA to choose to do it.
Regardless, there has rarely been a clamoring for one set of rules. Would it be easier if the rules were the same? Sure. But it’s an issue that is rarely if ever raised.
Now that Belichick has, we’ll see if his stated preference gets any traction.
