Clark to Head NCAA Football Rules Committee

Clark Presides Over Notre Dame - Sort Of
The Bridgewater College coach is about to become chairman of the NCAA football rules committee.

Daily News-Record - By Joe Lemire

BRIDGEWATER – Shortening the length of the game, mandating that helmet eye shields be clear and lowering the kicking tee aren’t glamorous changes, but they are among the adjustments Bridgewater College coach Michael Clark helped proctor as a member of the NCAA’s football rules committee.

Beginning in September, Clark will have even more clout when he starts his four-year term as chairman of the panel that determines rules for all divisions of NCAA football.

"It gives me a chance to influence the game," said Clark, who is entering his 12th season at BC. "I’m never going to influence the game with the money I make or any recognition I got. ... Maybe somewhere down the line I can look back and say that’s where we made the game better."

The 12-member committee, comprised of college coaches and administrators, has six representatives from Division I – four from I-A and two from I-AA – and three each from Divisions II and III. According to Clark, its mission is threefold: ensure the safety of players, coaches, officials and fans; maintain a competitive balance; and improve the sport.

Clark has remained realistic about his seemingly unlikely ascension from Division III coach to chairman of a committee that governs the rules for national football heavyweights like Notre Dame, Penn State and Southern California. He replaces Charles Broyles, the coach at Division II Pittsburg State in Kansas.

"Probably the reality is that the guys at the Division I level didn’t want to do it," Clark said with a chuckle. "I’m well aware that they probably didn’t want to put the time into it."

The two I-A coaches on the committee are Auburn’s Tommy Tuberville and Virginia Tech’s Frank Beamer, though Beamer’s term ends in September. Michigan’s Lloyd Carr was a member when Clark first joined the board three years ago.

Today, the primary matter facing the committee is the length of games.

"The next issue out there is time management and the pressure from the big-money people to speed up the game," Clark said. "Television is really impacting most of Division I at some level."

Clark said the overriding issue during his first two years was regulation of instant replay as used to overturn officials’ calls – something he speculated would affect even small-college football in the near future.

"We had to look into that because the day is coming when instant replay will be, at some level, in Division III," he said. "That’s coming. It might be three or four years out."

Clark said he’s enjoyed the give-and-take dynamic of the committee, which must consider a wide variety of factors. An example: kickoffs, which representatives from Division I – where the high frequency of touchbacks have made kickoffs a "dead play," Clark said – wanted to become a greater part of the game. But it wasn’t so simple, as an athletic trainer (and non-voting attendee of the committee meeting) voiced his opposition.

"When we were talking about bringing this play back into football, he was against it," Clark said. "From the [trainers’] perspective, the kickoff is the highest-risk play out there. There are high-speed collisions in open space."

After the committee nevertheless decided to alter kickoffs, one idea was to push back the kickoff from the 35-yard line to the 30, but an NFL study showed that lowering the tee from 2 inches to 1 inch has a greater effect on the length of kicks. That measure was approved and will be implemented this fall, and it’s an example of how a rule might be inspired by play at Division I but its impact will be felt at least as strongly at the lower levels.

"There are a lot of crappy kickers in Division III," Clark said. "Off a 1-inch tee, you’re going to get a lot of line-drive kicks. If you’re good at returning kicks, you can be at the 40 most of the time. From my perspective, kickoff return is going to get a lot of emphasis in summer ball."

Though Clark has made his name at the D-III level, he’s familiar with the Division I-A game, too, having played at Cincinnati and served as defensive coordinator for Beamer at Tech. Clark also has coaching experience at the I-AA level at Murray State and Virginia Military Institute.

"I can empathize with their issues," he said of the teams in the power conferences.

One fellow committee member praised Clark’s understanding of the panel’s influence across all divisions.

"Mike’s a football guy, and he’ll be a very good chair," said College of New Jersey coach Eric Hamilton. "... Mike has a genuine awareness of that [influence], and it shows that he does his homework."

Clark seems to have gained the respect of his peers, but perhaps not enough yet to pitch his grand idea: killing the extra point.

"The extra point is a wasted play," he said. "There wasn’t a lot of good with the XFL, but I liked their idea of enticing people to go for two by moving the ball up and moving it back to kick one. In Division I, they don’t even keep [extra points] as a statistic any more."

The committee holds several teleconferences throughout the season and meets every February for four days, alternating years between NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis and more intriguing locales like Key West, Fla., where Clark went for his first meeting. With such a travel enticement, being on the committee has its advantages – as does being chair.

"I’ve always said, if you’re going to sit through a long meeting, it’s a lot better to run it than to sit on the outside," Clark said with a laugh.