High school football: 40-second play clock coming this fall

Pace of play is reaching the high school level.

The National Federation of State High School Associations announced Monday seven rules revisions for high school football, including the play clock beginning at 40 seconds instead of 25 seconds in many cases beginning this fall.

The Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association will adopt the play-clock changes along with five other rule changes.

“The game will appear even smoother, according to them,” OSSAA associated director Mike Whaley told The Oklahoman. “It will be a change for the way the game is officiated and it will be a change for the way timing impacts play calling.”

The OSSAA will not adopt instant-replay procedures for the postseason, an optional rule for states announced by the NFHS. Whaley said the addition is not possible with Oklahoma playing playoff games at high school venues, opposed to states that play each championship game in an NFL or major college stadium.

But the new 40-second play clock will be a change to help the pace of the game.

Four states received permission to conduct an experiment with the play clock, each finding that officials placed the football and started the play clock in a range of 11-18 seconds. That led to 40 seconds for the new rule, not the use of that time in upper levels.

Play clocks will still begin at 25 seconds following a score, to start a new quarter or overtime, following an inadvertent whistle, following a timeout, following an official’s timeout with a few exceptions and following the stoppage of play by the referee for any other reason.

Other rule changes include:

*Beginning in the fall, it will be a foul to intentionally use the lower leg or foot to trip a runner.

*The horse-collar foul has been expanded to the name-plate area of the jersey.

*A penalty for illegally kicking or batting the ball has been reduced to 10 yards.

*Size requirements for numbers on jerseys through the 2023 season have been clarified, centering numbers along with requiring the body of the number to be either a color contrasting with the jersey color or the same color with a minimum of one border a quarter inch in width of a contrasting color.

*But in 2024, the entire body of the number must be a single solid contrasting color of the jersey.