Gone are the days of 3 yards and a cloud of dust from the Woody Hayes-Bo Schembechler era. In are the days of the spread offense, increased passing and increased scoring.
This offensive transformation has led to an increase in the length of games during the past few years.
Indiana head coach Terry Hoeppner expressed concern about the length of games in recent years.
The Hoosiers' season-opening win at Central Michigan lasted 3 hours, 52 minutes. MSU's overtime win against Notre Dame on Saturday lasted 4 hours, 1 minute. The usual NFL game lasts about three hours.
"We had a game in Hawaii a couple years ago that lasted (4 hours, 20 minutes)," Hoeppner said. "I really think it's something we have to address. Television is part of the equation right now but we have to look seriously at it. I'd like to get involved with that because I feel pretty strongly that we need to do something to protect our game and we don't need to be playing for four hours."
A number of explanations are being looked at, including longer television timeouts and the clock stopping on all first downs. The clock keeps moving on first downs in the NFL.
MSU head coach John L. Smith isn't fazed by the increasing length of games.
"The more you throw the ball, the longer the game's going to get," he said. "We've done that for years.
"It's been so long since we've had anything shorter than (three and a half hours)."
Injury blues
Michigan has been hit hard by the injury bug over the past few weeks.
Michigan head coach Lloyd Carr officially lost free safety Ryan Mundy on Monday because of a nerve injury.
Offensive linemen Mike Kolodziej, Jake Long and Matt Lentz and running back Mike Hart did not play in the Wolverines' 55-0 win over Eastern Michigan. The status of the injured players is up in the air for Saturday's game at Wisconsin.
"We've been unlucky, that's the reality of it," Carr said. "The guys that are hurt are fighting like the devil to get back as soon as they can. In the meantime, we have a lot of guys who are getting prepared to play."
