It’s so easy, “pay the players” edition

I wonder what Rod Gilmore would have to say about this column.

NFL to tailgaters: Bugger off!

To those of you who wish that D-1 postseason football was more like the NFL playoffs, be careful about what you wish for.

“There is no tailgating allowed in the Dolphin Stadium parking lots,” Sue Jaquez, a member of the Super Bowl XLI Host Committee, confirmed on Tuesday. “And there is no tailgating anywhere within a one-mile radius of the stadium.” “And there are no RVs allowed.”

But fear not, pro football fans.  This is in your best interest:

People “will be warned and asked to pick up their things and leave,” Fonticella said. “We’re trying to make this a pleasant experience for everyone…”

Why do they even bother selling tickets?

(h/t From The Bleachers)

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The usual suspects

If you’ve been wondering how much effect the new clock rules had on the game in 2006, here are some interesting – but not surprising – answers, courtesy of Oklahoma Sooners & NFL Blog:

Number of teams averaging at least 400 yards per game on offense:

2000: 38
2001: 43
2002: 30
2003: 39
2004: 33
2005: 40
2006: 17

Number of teams averaging 30 pts or more per game:

2000: 37
2001: 33
2002: 36
2003: 34
2004: 29
2005: 36
2006: 20

Number of teams allowing fewer than 300 yards per game on defense:

2000: 13
2001: 10
2002: 12
2003: 11
2004: 13
2005: 9
2006: 26

Number of teams allowing fewer than 14 pts per game on defense:

2000: 4
2001: 4
2002: 2
2003: 1
2004: 3
2005: 2
2006: 7

Number of teams averaging 200 yards rushing per game or more:

2000: 20
2001: 23
2002: 27
2003: 19
2004: 19
2005: 21
2006: 8

Number of individual rushers averaging 100 yards rushing per game or more:

2000: 26
2001: 30
2002: 35
2003: 28
2004: 23
2005: 34
2006: 18

Not exactly subtle, is it?

There’s one other stat of consequence, and it comes via Saurian Sagacity:

… If we take the number of plays that were run in an average CBS game in 2006 (139) and multiply it by the time per play from 2005 CBS games we should have had games that were 194.6 minutes (3:14:36) long. The difference between how long the games actually were and how long they “should” have been was 9.6 minutes (9:36). That’s enough time to run at least nineteen 30-second TV spots.

In the end I think it’s pretty obvious that, like a lot of product manufacturers, the NCAA created a new package with less “stuff” (game) in it and lowered the price (the time of the game) slightly to fool us into thinking we were getting a better deal. We’ve been had.

NOTE: Initially I had only calculated offensive plays for the Gators and the opponents in the games analyzed. The updated numbers include kicks and punts. The addition of kicks and punts to the analysis did not change the ultimate conclusion, in fact it exacerbated it. The amount of commercial spots that the networks were able to milk out of each game in 2006 increased from 17 to 20 (14 to 19 for CBS games) after the analysis was tweaked. We were had worse than I thought.

Captain Raynaud is shocked, shocked to find that the networks benefited from the new clock rule…