College football OT rules: Explaining sport's extra period, including 2-point conversions

Sometimes in college football , 60 minutes isn’t long to determine a winner.

Over the years, some of the sport’s most thrilling and memorable games went into overtime. It’s inherent to the sport’s charm and its occasionally chaotic nature.

Even for fans of the sport, overtime in college football can require some explanation. The rules for the extra period at the college level are drastically different than they are in the NFL , which uses just a single 10-minute period. To add to the confusion, the college rules have been tweaked in several noticeable ways in recent years, too.

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In the opening weeks of the 2024 college football season , several high-profile games have already gone into overtime, raising some questions for fans nationally who are following along with the action.

Here’s what you need to know about college football’s overtime rules:

How does overtime work in college football?

For a sport with a history dating back to 1869, the concept of overtime is a relatively new one.

Prior to 1995, if a game was deadlocked at the end of regulation, it simply ended as a tie. After being used for the bowl games at the end of the 1995 season, overtime was implemented across the FBS for the ensuing 1996 season.

The concept of overtime in college football is the same as it is in the NFL, with the team that scores the most points in the extra period winning the game. Beyond that, though, there are few similarities.

In stark contrast to the NFL, each team in college football is guaranteed at least one possession. Those drives begin not with a kickoff and return, but at the opposing team’s 25-yard line. Because of that arrangement, a team is in position to score even if it fails to gain a yard, though the unreliability of college kickers can sometimes make points far from a certainty.

The overtime period begins with captains from both teams meeting for a coin flip, with the winner determining whether they want to start on offense or defense, or which end of the field they will defend. It’s increasingly common for teams to want to start overtime on defense because they can later take over on offense knowing how many points they need to extend the game or win it.

Both teams have a chance to score, whether that be a field goal or a touchdown. The only occasion in which only one offense sees the field in overtime is if the team on defense scores a defensive touchdown in the opening period of OT. The team with more points at the end of the first overtime period wins the game. If it remains tied, it continues to a second overtime.

Each team receives one timeout for each overtime period. Unused timeouts from regulation do not carry over into overtime.

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College football double OT rules

If a team scores a touchdown in the first overtime period, it has the option of kicking an extra point or going for a 2-point conversion.

Once the second overtime begins, that choice is eliminated. Teams that score a touchdown in the second overtime have to go for two. Prior to 2021, when the rule was amended, teams had to go for two beginning in the third overtime.

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College football overtime 2-point conversions

Should a game still be tied after the second overtime, it moves on to a third overtime, where the rules change more dramatically than they did from the first to the second overtime.

Rather than starting from the opposing 25, teams simply alternate 2-point conversion attempts until one squad succeeds and the other fails.

Prior to 2021, the dueling 2-point conversions didn’t occur until the fifth overtime. That rule was introduced for the 2019 season and was widely seen as a response to the November 2018 game between Texas A&M and LSU. The Aggies beat LSU 74-72 in a game that lasted nearly five hours and tied the FBS record for going to the seventh overtime period.

In the first year the two-point conversions began in the third overtime, it got a notable test case in Illinois' 20-18 win against Penn State, which went a record nine overtimes. The game lasted four hours and 10 minutes, with both teams failing to successfully convert a two-point conversion until the eighth overtime.

How long is college football overtime?

In another marked difference with the NFL, there is no clock in college football overtimes, with the teams merely trading possessions until a winner is decided. That said, the play clock is still a factor, and can result in penalties if a team is called for delay of game.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: College football OT rules: Explaining sport's extra period, including 2-point conversions