College football doesn’t have a mercy rule, but you can still cut a blowout short

College football lends itself to blowouts. Whether it’s a power program playing an FCS team or a defense just getting burned continuously, things can get ugly. You don’t have to look that hard to spot a “Michigan 78, Rutgers 0” somewhere in your neighborhood, or maybe a “Florida State 77, Delaware State 6” somewhere just down the road.

Despite the potential for routs, college football doesn’t have a mercy rule. However, blowout games can be shortened, as long as both head coaches agree. They can do it by moving to shorten the quarters or mandate a running clock.

Before the game starts, playing time and the intermission between halves may be shortened by the referee if he is of the opinion that darkness or other conditions may interfere with the game. The four periods must be of equal length if the game is shortened before its start.

a. Any time during the game, the playing time of any remaining period or periods may be shortened by mutual agreement of the opposing head coaches and the referee.

That agreement can take the form of shorter quarters or a running clock.

During a 1988 Kansas-Auburn game, Jayhawks coach Glen Mason asked for a running clock, his team down 49–0 at halftime. Tigers coach Pat Dye and the officials agreed, and Auburn won 56–7.

It’s been used in recent years a good bit. In 2012, a Savannah State-FSU game had delays and a running clock before it was called early:

Florida State pulled its starters during the first quarter in which the Seminoles led 35-0.

And it got stranger from there. The game featured two rain delays, a 10-minute halftime, and two proposed 15-minute quarters that featured a running clock. Yes, a running clock in a college football game.

That was, until ESPN announced on its television broadcast that the game was final with 8:59 left in the third quarter.

At that point, FSU led 55-0, and the Noles had 413 yards compared to the Tigers’ 28.

In 2013, pre-FBS Old Dominion’s game against UNC was shortened in the fourth quarter by five minutes, the Tar Heels winning 80-20 in Chapel Hill.

That same year, a Louisville-FIU blowout had an interesting situation.

“I don’t know if there was a running clock or whatever, but it was one of those games where we were playing so well,” Louisville coach Charlie Strong said via USA Today. “It was a situation where I never want to get in a game where we can see how many points we can put up. I know they had a lot of injuries. We weren’t trying to embarrass them.”

C-USA Coordinator of Officials Gerald Austin later released a statement:

“Coach Turner made a comment to one of the officials that, given the amount of injuries and the limited numbers of players he had available, he wanted to run the ball in the second half. One official misinterpreted that comment. Coach Turner, at no time requested that the clock run. FIU threw just one pass in the second half.

After reviewing the tape there were five times that the clock should have been stopped and it did not. Four times were on first down and one play where the runner went out of bounds, based on a quick review of the video.”

Miami’s 77-7 win against Savannah State had a running clock that same year, too.

In 2015, the second half of a Boston College-Howard game was shortened to 10-minute quarters, and the Eagles won 76-0, after leading by 62-0 at halftime.

“I always want to make sure that as a team we’re not settling, or that we’re not quitting, but understanding where we are,” then-Howard head coach Gary “Flea” Harrell said after the game. “We’re trying to make sure we are competitive and injury-free. We came here for a specific job. At that time I had to make an executive decision and agree to the circumstances of that game. I knew about the rule of letting the clock run but when they presented the 10-minute mark for the third and fourth quarters, so we agreed upon it. I think it was a good decision.”

In 2016, Clemson’s second half against South Carolina State was shortened, and the Tigers ended up winning 56-0. It was 34-0 at halftime.

“The refs came to me right before the half and just said, ‘Would I be OK with some type of shortening up the game if South Carolina State wanted to do it?’“ Dabo Swinney said. “I said it would be fine with me. When I got back on the field for the third quarter, they came to me and said, ‘Are you OK with 12-minute quarters these two (quarters)?’ I said it’d be great. I didn’t have a problem with that.”

”He’s got a game Thursday night himself, so you’ve got to look on his side as well,” South Carolina State coach Buddy Pough said after the game. “Anything we can do to make our teams better for the next week, we probably needed to do.”

Back in 1886, the national championship game between Yale and Princeton was called on account of darkness due to heavy rain in the area at 4-0 with the Bulldogs winning. This was before we even had the NCAA, so it was ruled a “no contest” at 0-0 under the rules of the time.

In 2015, a ULM-Georgia game was called in the fourth quarter following a lightning delay that put the game on hold for an hour.

“At that point in time in the game the reality was they were going to run the football and run out the clock and we were going to do the same thing,” ULM coach Todd Berry said, via The News Star. “I don’t know there would have been much value other than getting us home later than what we would have gotten home,” he added.

TCU beat Kansas 43-0 in 2017, and in the fourth quarter, the teams decided on a running clock due to weather. In 2016, Texas State-Arkansas was cut to a 10-minute fourth quarter for the same reason.

As you probably have noticed, most of these games feature bigger power programs beating up on FCS opponents. No one likes to be embarrassed, and especially not when you’re David in a Goliath-type matchup. It’s both pretty fair and reasonable for the opposing team to ask for a running clock, and for the winning team to agree to it.

While implementing a running clock isn’t technically a mercy rule, it’s just as good, and most coaches seem to think it suffices.