BREAKING: College Lacrosse Is Finally Getting The Shot Clock It Deserves
Did I wake up this morning thinking that I’d be writing two lacrosse blogs on a Friday afternoon in August? No I did not. But I guess that just means that some days are better than others. And today is one of the best days because a shot clock is finally coming to college lacrosse
The thing about lacrosse–or at least the field game–is that while lacrosse fans call it “the fastest game on 2 feet”, there is also plenty of moments throughout the game where somebody who isn’t familiar with the sport would think that nothing is going on. That usually happens when a team gets possession of the ball, has to sub on and off the field, get set up into their offense and then get going. While people who play the game or have watched enough of the game understand what’s going on there, to somebody who is just flipping through the channels and landed on lacrosse it looks like dead air. And for me, that’s the biggest advantage to adding a shot clock to college lacrosse. It immediately makes it a better product for television. 20 seconds to clear the ball is more than enough time to sub on your personnel and then once you cross the midfield line, you have a minute to at least get a shot on cage. 60 seconds doesn’t necessarily mean “run and gun” lacrosse and just try to score in transition every time you have the ball, but it also means that there won’t be nearly as much dead time in the game if any at all. So in terms of making a better on-air product, this is definitely a huge step in the right direction for college lacrosse. It’s already the biggest version of the game in terms of popularity against the MLL and NLL. And now with a uniform pace to the game, it’ll be much easier to watch for newer viewers.
The second thing that’s great about adding the shot clock is that it finally takes the responsibility away from the refs to dictate the pace of the game. I’m not saying that because I think that refs do a bad job at it. I just think that refs already have so many other things to watch out for during a lacrosse game that also making them control the pace of the game is too much for them to handle. Especially considering it’s always kind of difficult to determine whether a team is actually stalling or whether they’re just not able to get a good look or what. This will get rid of all the moments where you have a stadium full of fans plus an entire sideline screaming at the refs to put on the shot clock because an offense just can’t get a shot off against a zone defense. Now no matter what, it’s a uniform 60 seconds to get a shot off once you cross the midfield. We’ll probably start to see a lot more zone defense now in the college game but it’ll only be a matter of time before offenses start to pick them apart. Either way, this is good for the stripes because now they can focus more on the rest of the game and let the clock do the work for them.
With the way the game has been trending anyway, I don’t think the shot clock is going to completely change the complexion of too many teams in the nation. So it may take a little getting used to but after a full fall to work out the kinks, the game should look much cleaner and much faster come the spring time. The shot clock is good for the game and it’s even better for television. The Sport of the Future is getting closer and closer to the Sport of the Present. Suck on it, haters.