Is the Two-Minute Warning Impacting College Football Game Length in 2024?

Editor’s note: This article has been updated through the Week 12 (11/16) games of the 2024 season and will be updated as more games are completed and data becomes available.

The 2024 college football season represents a significant change both on and off the field. Numerous realignment changes led to the Pac-12 becoming the Pac-2 (or is it 2Pac?) while the rules committee made significant changes for the second consecutive season. In 2023, the big change was the clock stopped after first downs inside the final two minutes instead of every first down. That led to a decrease of 4 minutes per game in 2023 at the FBS level while the FCS, Division 2, and Division 3 saw little or no change.

There are once again several rule changes in place for the 2024 season led by the divisive two-minute warning at the end of the half. The idea is to remove the frequent commercial breaks that happen in quick succession and to “standardize” some of the timing runoffs in the final two minutes. Based on the reporting, there should be no impact as the two-minute warning is replacing a commercial break that would normally be shown earlier in the quarter.

One final note: For the upcoming 2024 season, D3 will implement the rule changes that the FBS, FCS, and D2 used in 2023. D3 games were shorter by 2 minutes compared to 2022 but still well higher than the low-water mark of 2:37 set in 2015. Let’s track all the changes for the 2024 season starting with the previous dozen years of data.

2024 vs. Previous Years (Annual Data)

The table below takes an average of the NCAA’s data, which isn’t perfect but is close to other sources, especially for the 2023 season. The same process is in place for the 2024 season and the numbers will fluctuate in the early part of the season due to a lower number of games. Some commentary will be provided below along with weekly tables and graphs alongside some yearly charts.

11/17/24 Update (Week 12): All three categories dropped by one minute following week 12’s action. The FBS is back to 3:27, which is where it was in Week 3. FCS (3:18) and D3 (2:50) are at their lowest points of the season. As usual, nothing from D2. With week 12 in the books, D3 will begin the new 40-team playoff in Week 13 so there will not be another weekly update for them until the season is complete. The FCS will complete its regular season next week, which means one more week of data from them before the final numbers in January.

11/10/24 Update (Week 11): The FCS and D3 levels saw another decrease of one minute per game, which has put them on a path toward 2023 game length. As for the FBS, it remains at 3:28, which is basically where it was after week one. No data is published for D2.

11/3/24 Update (Week 10): The FBS game length increased by one minute while both FCS and D3 decreased by one minute from last week. Both the FBS and FCS have seen a slight year-over-year decrease in plays per game by 0.2 plays. For D3, there’s been a larger decrease of 2.5 plays per game, which is because D3 didn’t have the 2023 timing rules in place until this season. D2 game length data continues not to be published.

10/27/24 Update (Week 9): All three subdivisions showed a small decrease in game length despite a tiny uptick in the number of plays per game. There continues to be no D2 game length data per usual.

10/20/24 Update (Week 8): The NCAA was early to update the data this week. D2 data hasn’t been shown all season and probably won’t at this point but we’ll keep looking to be thorough. FBS game length didn’t change while D3 saw a 4-minute decrease between weeks 6 and 8 (data wasn’t published after week 7). The FCS data is suspect for this week as it went from 3:20 to 3:23 but a closer look reveals some data was wrong last week and that has carried over to this week and some teams had a sudden spike this week. Morgan State is not completing games in 1 hour and 40 minutes on average, nor did Towson go from 3:07 in Week 5 to 6:48 in Week 8 for an average game length.

Right now the data says the 2-minute warning is correlated with higher game times across the FBS, FCS, and D3. The obvious caveat is that correlation does not equal causation and that underlying data may be flawed. It’s not up to us or anyone outside the NCAA to verify their data or that the vendor they use is obtaining the correct data. We can only go with the data provided and that data is showing an increase in game length across college football.

10/17/24 Update (Week 7): There was a bit of a hiccup collecting the data but the latest still isn’t great. The FBS is still at 3:28 for the game while the FCS is at 3:20 through the games on October 12 (week 7). For D3, the most recent game length data is 10/11, which effectively means the year-to-date is based on week 6 and their game length is 2:58.

9/29/24 Update (Week 5): FBS saw an increase of 1 minute and is currently tied with the 2020 and 2021 seasons at 3 hours and 28 minutes. The FCS decreased by 5 minutes over the last week but is still at 3:19, which is the highest mark since 2013. D2 is… we don’t know because the data is not available. D3 is at 2:55 when rounded up for the week but is on a gradual decline so far.

9/22/24 Update (Week 4): Usual disclaimer: D2 game length data still isn’t available. For the FCS, the stats showed an average of 10+ hours for Abilene Christian game length but that appears to be an issue with the box score from the 9/21 game against Idaho, which shows the game took over 9 hours to complete. That is not correct as the game started at 7 PM local time and ended around 10:30 PM. That was corrected on our sheet. Overall, it’s tough to make any conclusions because week 4 had several weather delays but it’s worth noting that all three measured divisions (FBS, FCS, D3) saw an increase in plays per game from the previous week.

9/15/24 Update (Week 3): Wouldn’t you know, the D2 game length still isn’t available. FBS game length dropped two minutes from 3:29 to 3:27 while the FCS remained the same at 3:27. D3 saw a big decrease from 3:06 to 2:57 in its second week of games. Still a bit early to make any definitive conclusions.

9/8/24 Update (Week 2): For whatever reason, the NCAA stats page doesn’t show D2 game length but does for FBS, FCS, and D3. So what do we see? Every level of college football (except for D2) is taking longer to complete in 2024 than in 2023 despite there being fewer plays. However… the first several weeks of the season feature the worst player conditioning, refs/players/coaches getting used to the new rules, etc. which result in more stoppages. 2023 saw the FBS and FCS hit the high-water mark in week two before game length gradually declined and that’s expected to happen this season too.

9/1/24 Update (Week 1): With nearly all of week 1’s games complete there are some noticeable changes. The FBS is currently averaging 3 hours and 29 minutes per game – a 6-minute increase over 2023. The FCS is at 3 hours and 20 minutes, which is a 4-minute increase from 2023. Game length hasn’t been published for D2 games while D3 won’t begin play until next week.

Before we get the pitchforks out, there were a handful of games that had weather delays after the game had started. Subjectively, every game I watched felt like there was still at least one sequence every half that went like this: play, timeout followed by a commercial break, then another play, and then another timeout and commercial break. It was only week 1 so maybe the networks are getting used to the two-minute warning and trying to place all the commercial breaks properly. Maybe…

8/30/24 Update: The NCAA was very slow to publish game length data on its website but the data through the games on August 29, 2024 is now available. And… it looks closer to last year with the FBS at 3 hours and 25 minutes (up from 3:23) and the FCS at 3:18 (up from 3:16). The obvious caveat: it is still week one and these numbers will remain a bit volatile in the first few weeks.

8/25/24 Update: Week 0 is in the books and the NCAA didn’t publish any data at the time of posting this article so the numbers above reflect what each individual box score had for game length, offensive plays, and defensive plays. The numbers are subject to change when the NCAA posts its data but given the low sample size, there’s not much to take away. As a result, the graphs below aren’t the greatest visual right now with only one data point for the FBS and FCS while D2 and D3 have no data points yet.

2024 Weekly Change Tables and Charts

Additional Yearly Charts (Updated Through 2024 Season Week 12)

Photo Courtesy of Joe Camporeale / USA TODAY Sports