USFL Makes Big Rule Change to Speed up Game

By Brian Jones

The USFL is looking to pick up the pace three weeks into the inaugural season. This week, Mike Pereira, the USFL's head of officiating, announced on Thursday that the league will utilize a running clock after incomplete passes during the first and third quarters. The change will start in Week 4 and is designed to keep the games under three hours. 

"We believe this change will achieve the desired game length," Pereira said, per CBS Sports, "while still providing the number of plays you've come to expect in a professional football game."  The USFL features eight teams and they play all their games in Birmingham, Alabama. And entering Week 4, the Birmingham Stallions are the only undefeated team (3-0). On the opposite end, the Pittsburgh Maulers are the only team that has yet to win a game (0-3). 

"We have a lot of leadership on this team," said Birmingham receiver Victor Bolden Jr., who finished with six receptions for 70 yards and a score, told Fox Sports after the team's win against the New Orleans Breakers. "A lot of older guys who've experienced tough games and close games before. So, we just continue to play the next play, and these guys keep stepping up."   

The Maulers were in the news last month when the coach, Kirby Wilson, cut a player, De'Veon Smith for violating team rules. The incident was shown on the docuseries United by Football, and Wilson is talking to Smith about ordering pizza instead of chicken salad from the team hotel, which then led to him being cut. 

"I have a set of standards that we go by as a football team," Wilson said at the time. "Those standards weren't met. That individual knew that we had a prior agreement that led to a later misunderstanding. Once those incidents were brought to my attention, I addressed them immediately.   

"These are life lessons. They have nothing to do with football. You're trying to teach people how to respect other people, no matter how you see or view them. He had immediately reached back out, apologized, committed to trying to be a better man, a better person from the incident. But we have already moved on.  It's very unfortunate this went out as a one-sided story, but I've been in this business too long. ... We have a very, very high standard of football. It wasn't met. When we have a player that steps out of line, with what we believe in as a staff, it must be dealt with. I didn't think twice about it."

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