College Football Rule Changes: Helmet communication, two-minute warning & more

The college football rule changes for 2024 aren’t nearly as drastic in terms of how game officials will do their jobs as the clock rule changes that went into effect last season. But this year’s changes will be just as significant in their effect on the game.

Here’s a look at what’s new for 2024.

In-Helmet Communication

Usually, a major rule change forces game officials to retrain their brains. Last year, for example, college football officials had to re-learn when the clock must stop after an NCAA rule change that kept the clock running after first downs for most of the game. 

This year, the most obvious rule change might affect the game just as much but won’t require nearly as much re-education. Officials will just have to make sure they count the green dots on every play.

What’s a green dot? It’s the sticker affixed to the back of a player’s helmet that signifies the player has a radio inside the helmet through which a coach can relay information. This should seem familiar to anyone who has watched the NFL in the past 30 years, because the technology and implementation will look nearly identical to that league. Just as in the NFL, only one player per team can wear a green dot helmet on the field.

The difference? The NFL has 53-man rosters. College football rosters routinely top 100.

Teams might have up to four green dot players on each side of the ball. But only one of those can wear a radio helmet at a given time.

“Let’s say you’ve got some very versatile defensive players that have radios and you want to use them on special teams,” SEC coordinator of officials John McDaid said. “They’re going to have to have a second helmet without a radio if one of their teammates is out on the field with a radio.”

If your team has ever given its opponent a free first down because it got flagged for having two players wearing the same number on a punt return, pay special attention to the green dots. Because a two green dot helmet penalty is in the same family.

Most coaches have said the helmet radios won’t eliminate the brigade of support staffers who help signal in plays from the sideline, but it may reduce the number of people required. But don’t be surprised if the sideline signal squads look the same at first. Coaches also know that if one team’s helmet radio system stops working, the other team’s will be turned off as well to ensure fairness.

Two-Minute (Warning) Timeout

We all know what the NFL calls the automatic timeout either at the two-minute mark or at the first dead ball following the two-minute mark of the second and fourth quarters. It’s called the two-minute warning. That concept is coming to college football, but it will have a slightly different name. “It’s the two-minute timeout,” McDaid said.

For all practical purposes, it will work the same as the NFL’s two-minute stoppage. Teams will have essentially an extra timeout to work with at the end of each half. In college, the clock will stop on first downs inside the two-minute timeout. That first-down clock stoppage happened inside the two-minute mark at the end of each half last year, but this draws a bright line that ensures everyone knows when the stoppages come into play.

Sideline tablets for video replay

This rule doesn’t affect how the games get called by officials at all, but it should alter how quickly offenses and defenses adjust to new tactics. Before, coaches and players weren’t allowed to use electronic devices to watch replays of plays. Now, sidelines will be equipped with tablets that allow position coaches to quickly examine video and show players exactly what happened on certain plays. 

Before, coaches had to rely on what their co-workers in the coaches box saw and what their players relayed to them coming off the field. “What did you see?” was the most common question a position coach would ask a player. Now, that coach probably will have watched the play in question and can immediately begin instructing players how to run the play better.

Expanded 10-second runoff rule

McDaid pointed out that the two-minute timeout does add one interesting wrinkle. Before, certain penalties included a 10-second runoff if committed in the final minute of a half. Now, the runoff rules apply in the final two minutes of a half.

The penalties in question are dead ball fouls that stop a running clock. Those include false starts by the offense, offsides (unabated to the quarterback and with contact) by the defense and illegally thrown passes (either passer has crossed the line of scrimmage or a second forward pass). 

Imagine a team on the road at a loud, hostile stadium such as the ones at LSU or Penn State or Tennessee is down a score and trying to mount a game-winning drive. Now imagine the crowd causes the left guard to false start on first-and-10 with 1:45 remaining. Now it’s going to be first-and-15 with 1:35 remaining. Now let’s say the right tackle jumps 40 game seconds later. Instead of snapping the ball with 55 seconds remaining, the team is snapping it with 45 seconds remaining and has lost 10 yards and 20 seconds to penalties.

“It might not happen this year, but it’ll happen in the first two or three years,” McDaid said. “Somewhere, somehow, we’ll have the same team in the same half in the same possession have two 10-second runoffs.”

And that team’s coach will go berserk.