Contents
The Football Field
Scoring in Football
The Structure of a Football Game
The Football Game Clock
How to Break Down a Football Play
Football Offense
Football Defense
Special Teams
Football Officials and Penalties
The NFL
College Football
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The Football Game Clock
Most football games last about three hours, even though actual game play is only 60 minutes. These 60 minutes are tracked by a game clock and are divided into different segments:
- Halves: A football game is divided into two 30-minute halves. Each half begins with a kickoff. The team that kicked off in the opening half is the receiving team in the second half.
- Quarters: Each half is divided into two 15-minute quarters. At the end of each quarter, the teams switch end zones. Switching sides ensures that both teams face the same weather conditions, such as wind, over the course of the game. Every time a new quarter begins, the game clock is set to 15 minutes.
If the score is tied at the end of the fourth quarter, a 15-minute overtime period is played in which the first team to score wins. If the score is tied after overtime in the regular season, the game ends in a tie. In the playoff games (see The NFL), overtime periods continue until a team scores.
Game Clock Starts and Stops
Though a football game clock has just 60 minutes, football games typically take about three hours to play because the game clock stops frequently. The game clock stops:
- Between each quarter
- Between each half
- After a kick return or punt return
- After a score
- After a change in possession
- When a player carrying the ball steps out of bounds
- When a play ends because a forward pass is incomplete
- At the two-minute warning, or two minutes prior to the end of each half
- When a team uses a timeout (each team gets three timeouts per half that it can use to stop the clock)
- When the officials need to rule on a penalty
Near the end of a game, the losing team often tries to preserve the time on the game clock by throwing the ball instead of running it, and by running out of bounds rather than getting tackled on the field. Teams also tend to save their timeouts so they can use them near the end of the game. When the game clock is stopped during play, it generally starts running again at the start of the next play.
Play Clock
In addition to the game clock, football also uses a play clock to limit the amount of time that an offense can use between plays. From the moment a play ends, the offense has 40 seconds to start the next play. If the offense fails to start the next play within 40 seconds, it receives a delay of game penalty (see Football Officials and Penalties).
The play clock may or may not run in time with the game clock. For instance, if the game clock has stopped because the previous play ended with an incomplete pass, the game clock stops, but the play clock continues to count down 40 seconds until the next play must start.
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