College football fans may be seeing a little less of their favorite sport this fall.

For the second time in three years, the NCAA has targeted the length of its games, which in recent seasons has dragged on well past the three-hour mark that is typical of an NFL contest. Before the 2006 season, the NCAA enacted a series of changes to its timing rules that proved remarkably effective, chopping nearly 14 minutes off the average game.

Yet Rule 3-2-5-e was met mostly with derision by coaches and fans because it altered game strategy. Perhaps in an attempt to differentiate itself from the NFL, the NCAA decided to run the game clock following changes of possession and as soon as the ball was struck on kickoffs. These changes led to confusion in late-game situations, with teams taking timeouts immediately following turnovers. Rule 3-2-5-e hit its nadir when Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema exposed a loophole in a game against Penn State. Kicking off late in the first half, Bielema directed his team to commit multiple offsides infractions to run more time off the clock. It created a potentially dangerous situation, with kickoff gunners sprinting downfield some 10 yards ahead of the kick, and put the spotlight on the ridiculous nature of the new rule. No one can know if Bielema’s actions were part of the reason why 3-2-5-e was repealed after a single season. With timing rules reset to 2005, last year’s average NCAA game climbed to an outlandish 3:23, adding two minutes from the last season with similar rules despite several measures — including shortened time-outs — designed to trim time.

Now the NCAA is determined to address the issue again. And since the real culprit — television stoppages — is unlikely to ever fall in the NCAA’s crosshairs, it is once again being suggested that timing rules be altered. Only this time, the NCAA is going about it in a much more sensible way.

On February 13, the NCAA Rules Committee proposed two major changes to the sport’s timing rules, both of which are based on the NFL system. The first recommendation was the adoption of a 40/25 second play clock, which ensures consistency in pace of play. Under the new system, the 40-second play clock will start immediately following the conclusion of the previous play. Under the old rule, a 25-second play clock did not start until the officials unpiled the players, retrieved the ball, spotted it, and signaled ready-for-play, a process that could take anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds. In the new system, a 25-second play clock will only be used any time there is an administrative stoppage of the game, such as for a first-down measurement, an injury, or a change of possession. The play clock alone is unlikely to have a dramatic effect on length of game, but the other recommended change almost certainly will.

In another nod to NFL rules, the committee suggested that the game clock no longer stop completely following out-of-bounds plays. Except in the final two minutes of each half, the clock would stop only as long as it takes to spot the ball following a player being tackled out of bounds, at which point it would resume. This change promises to shave several minutes (and plays) from the average college game. The difference from 2006 is that it will do so in a way that doesn’t either alter late-game strategy or create loopholes like the one Wisconsin’s Bielema so infamously exploited. The proposals still must be approved by the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel in April, a move that is widely expected, before they can take effect for the 2008 season.

Early returns from the college football blogosphere, which drove the campaign against Rule 3-2-5-e, have been mixed. There is much less antagonism toward the new play-clock proposal than to the out-of-bounds rule, with many lamenting the refusal to take on the real culprit — television — and force it into fewer game-extending commercial breaks. The more realistic observers know that complaining about television is futile; it is the engine that drives the sport’s popularity and revenue streams.

One aspect of the game the NCAA has thus far refused to address is overtime. The college overtime system is often celebrated for its difference from the NFL — each team gets a chance to score from the 25-yard line — but multiple overtimes can add an hour or more to the length of a game. According to the college football statistical site cfbstats.com, the eight longest games last season were all overtime affairs.

Starting overtime possessions further back or mandating 2-point conversion attempts after every touchdown (rather than just in the third possession and beyond, as the present rule dictates) would surely limit the number of multiple-overtime contests.

Die-hard college football fans may not like the idea of fewer plays per contest and may not care about four-hour games, but there is a reason beyond just protecting the typical three- and-a-half-hour television window that the NCAA needs to implement these proposals.

No matter what one thinks of NCAA “amateurism,” these players are compensated with little more than tuition and board. With every play in a football game an invitation to injury, student athletes should not be forced to expose their bodies to more snaps each week than in the true pay-for-play world of the NFL.

Mr. Levine is a writer for FootballOutsiders.com.