New NCAA rules designed to speed up games

The NCAA has announced its 2006 football rule changes and while none of the modifications are extremely significant many of the alterations seem to have the common purpose of making the games shorter in duration. One of the more interesting rule changes for the upcoming season is that kicking tees cannot elevate the ball's lowest point more than one inch above the ground (as opposed to the traditional 2"). The idea behind this change is that with a lower tee there will be fewer touchbacks which will make the game go faster. Last year, Michigan's punter/kickoff specialist Ross Ryan booted 40 of his 69 kickoffs for touchbacks. He will be hard pressed to match that number this year using the lower tee. Go Blue!