Is it time to get rid of the kickoff in college football? ‘It could go away someday’
Making football safer is the priority for anyone involved in the game, and that’s why the kickoff has seen a number of rule changes made to it in recent years.
Studies have shown the kickoff is the most dangerous play in the sport, which is why four-man wedges were eliminated and then three-man wedges and now two-man wedges.
It’s why college football moved the touchback from the 20-yard line to the 25-yard line in 2012, and the NFL followed suit in 2018. College football implemented a new rule last year, too, where teams are able to fair catch a kickoff short of the goal line and start on their own 25.
Results are showing the kickoff is becoming a safer and safer play with the changes. But those changes have essentially devalued the kickoff return to the point where it could be eliminated in the foreseeable future.
Teams are typically at a disadvantage returning kickoffs these days, based on statistics.
No Big 12 team averaged more than 25 yards on kickoff returns last season, and only one (TCU) returned a kickoff for at touchdown. In 2017, TCU was the only Big 12 team that averaged more than 25 yards on kickoff returns and Kansas State was the league’s lone school to reach that mark in 2016.
“The statistics are pretty telling,” Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said at the Big 12 Media Days earlier this month. “And you see it in the NFL -- they don’t run back very many kickoffs. It could go away someday.”
The biggest issue in doing away with the kickoff is a team’s ability to go for an onside kick. That’s obviously a strategic aspect that teams can employ late in games as a way to try and get an extra possession.
Plus, the kickoff has always been a staple of getting the game underway, much like a tip off in basketball.
In the end, though, it’s about safety and it’s getting difficult to see reasons why a kickoff is necessary at this point.
“A [College Football Playoff] semifinal game two years ago had 13 kickoffs run back and only two of them got to the 25-yard line,” Bowlsby said. “We’ll see what happens. … We need to be constantly vigilant that we’re making it a safer game so young people don’t have to compromise the way they live the rest of their lives as a result of participating in a sport.”
