How college football overtime works! A quick explainer
Here's everything to know about the sport's best overtime system, really quickly.
College football's rule change to add overtime in lieu of ties is relatively recent. Since 1996, games that are tied at the end of regulation play some additional football to decide who wins, but the rules are a bit different from (and way better than) the NFL's.
Whether you're a new college football fan, an older one who hasn't watched in a while, or a current fan who simply never learned the overtime rules: no judgment here. Get caught up.
What are college football’s overtime rules?
If a game is tied after four quarters, the teams will play extra periods until someone wins.
- Each period consists of one possession for each team, the order of which is decided by a pre-overtime coin toss.
- Each possession starts at the defense's 25-yard line.
- If the teams remain tied at the end of a period, they play another full period.
- After each period, the order of possession flips. So if you had the ball first in one period, you have it second in the next.
- Starting in the third period, teams can no longer kick extra points and must go for two after touchdowns. This is to try and help things wrap up quickly.
How long can CFB overtime go?
As long as it needs to! Arkansas-Ole Miss went seven overtimes in 2001, setting the FBS record (that’s since been tied by 2003 Kentucky-Arkansas, 2006 North Texas-FIU, and 2017 Buffalo-WMU), but the two-point conversion rule tends to keep games from going on too long.
Does the overtime coin flip matter?
Yes, most teams that win the coin toss choose to start on defense. It can give a slight strategic advantage, allowing the offense to know if it has to score a touchdown or whether it can settle for a field goal. Stats show that the team on offense second has a higher chance of winning. Some teams choose to start on offense, but it's rare.
Is this better than the NFL’s version?
Absolutely, without question. You would’ve preferred to see Julio Jones get one last shot to score in Super Bowl 51, right?
The NFL version gives one team the ball with the chance to win it all right there, if it scores a touchdown. If that first drive is a field goal or a bust, then the next score wins. But letting, say, a huge kick return (on a free possession that nobody particularly earned) decide an entire overtime period is a pretty silly way to end an evenly matched game.
How do other levels of football do overtime?
The NCAA method started in Kansas high schools, and the CFL, XFL, and others have used similar versions.
What’s the history of this overtime method?
“The Kansas Plan” history, via the Kansas State High School Activities Association (lightly condensed):
Brice Durbin, former Executive Director for the KSHSAA, recalls a playoff game in 1970. “The end of regulation came and we still had a tie ballgame,” said Durbin. The procedure for determining a winner at the time involved calculations of first downs, yardage gained, and total number of penetrations inside the 5, 10, and 20-yard lines. A process that would take up to 20 minutes to determine the winner resulting in fans leaving the field not knowing who was moving to the next level.
Durbin and the KSHSAA Board of Directors had just implemented football state playoffs a year earlier in 1969. The first overtime game came that year in an 8-man contest between Lucas and Lecompton. Lucas won the playoff game 31-30 because their number of penetrations inside the 5-yard line tallied more than Lecompton. But it is the Shawnee Mission North game that really started to shift the way of thinking towards overtime rules. On a national level no one really had overtime procedures differing from the Kansas approach. Collegiate and professional football ended games with a tie.
Durbin came up with the idea for a 10-yard line overtime system. Assistant Executive Director Nelson Hartman commented that the 10-yard line system was the best resemblance of what the game reflects. At the result of an even score after four quarters, each team would get four downs to score from the 10-yard line. If the score remain tied, each team would repeat the process until a winner prevail. All game rules would be identical to the four quarters preceding the overtime.
The system worked well and was reviewed positively by the majority of state’s coaches and administrators. So, Durbin and Hartman took the system to the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) and asked to have the overtime system adopted by the nation. The NFHS approved giving state associations the option of using the overtime system.
The NCAA settled on the 25-yard line instead of the 10, but there you have it.