NCAA closes 12-man penalty loophole Oregon exploited in pivotal moment of win over Ohio State

A rules loophole that allowed Oregon to gain an advantage by using 12 players on a key play late in its win over Ohio State last week is closed. On Wednesday, NCAA coordinator of officials Steve Shaw announced a new interpretation of the rule that will keep teams from replicating what the Ducks did in the closing moments of their 32-31 win over the Buckeyes.

With Ohio State trailing by a point with 10 seconds left and facing a third-and-25 from Oregon's 43-yard line, the Ducks ran an extra man onto the field before Buckeyes quarterback Will Howard fired an incompletion.

Though the Ducks were assessed a 5-yard penalty, they succeeded in running valuable time off the clock as the Buckeyes failed to pick up the chunk of yardage they needed against Oregon's illegal defense.

Under the old rule, the Buckeyes could not recover the time run off the clock during the play. Thus, a 5-yard penalty was a small price for Oregon to pay in exchange for the benefit of an extra defender with the game on the line.

Following the infraction, Ohio State was only able to run one more play, and the Ducks escaped with a momentous victory in the national spotlight.

Moving forward, if the defense is flagged for having too many men on the field, officials will reset the game clock to the amount of time that was left prior to the infraction.

"Football is a very dynamic game," Shaw said. "Occasionally there are specific situations where committing a penalty can give a team an advantage. A guiding principle of the NCAA Football Rules Committee is that there should be no benefit when a team commits a penalty. The goal of this in-season interpretation is to eliminate a potential clock advantage for committing a substitution foul and take away any gain for the defense if they violate the substitution rule."