Smart people had differing opinions on what the new college football clock rules would do to scoring.  While eight is hardly a representative sample, it is worth noting that Thursday and Friday games went over the total at a 6-2 clip.  The Buffalo/UTEP game was middled by the one or two people who were waiting all summer to bet the under, but went over the closing number for everyone else.

Again, eight isn’t much of a sample size.  But it is worth keeping an eye on.  The opinion here is that some teams are looking to play really fast, and will be helped by the new 40-second clock, which added plays to NFL games when instituted.  Other coaches will look to shorten the game by milking the clock, which now runs after out of bounds plays.  Rather than seeing across the board higher scoring or lower scoring, we’ll see certain teams exhibit patterns depending on their preferred style of play.

Offensively talented teams with depth will look to attack.  Outmanned teams hoping to keep it close will slow things down.

College football is becoming more like college basketball, in that coaches, empowered by the rules changes, are putting more focus on controlling the pace of games.