Auburn and Georgia scoreboard.jpg

Scoreboards, such as this one at Auburn, are showing far more high-scoring games in college football. Offense has always increased in college football history, but rarely at this fast a rate.

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. -- Standing outside his locker room in Atlanta last month, Auburn defensive coordinator Ellis Johnson pondered the question: What's it like to be a defensive coordinator these days, give up 42 points and still win the SEC championship?

Johnson quickly noted that his defense "only" gave up 35 points -- the other touchdown came off a turnover -- and held Missouri under its scoring average. But Johnson, a football lifer who has spent 23 seasons as a defensive coordinator, understood the point of the question.

"I think it's obvious that things are going up," Johnson said. "That's what fans want. That's what ADs want. That's what's going to happen. And the rules are such they're not going to slow it down so you might as well get used to it and you better find a way to play with it."

College football has reached a point where most defenses simply can't keep up like they once did. The game looks different, feels different and plays different. Auburn, for example, is going for its second national championship in four years with a uniquely prolific offense schemed by Gus Malzahn yet has an often porous defense.

Records continue to fall on offense. In the regular season, Football Bowl Subdivision offenses averaged the following stats that are on pace to set NCAA records again: 29.6 points per game, 412.6 total yards per game, 5.75 yards per play, 176.4 rushing yards and 4.47 yards per carry.

FBS 10-Year Trends (

Average Per Game, One team)

Year Points Plays Total yards Yards per carry Completion percentage 2013 29.6 71.8 412.6 4.47 59.8 2003 26.9 71.0 382.6 4.01 56.8 1993 24.4 70.5 371.2 3.98 55.1 1983 22.1 71.6 352.3 3.80 53.6 1973 21.0 70.5 323.6 3.85 47.2 1963 15.8 61.7 265.3 3.63 46.1 1953 17.1 60.3 268.2 3.92 42.8

Sources: NCAA football record book and 2013 NCAA football statistics

It's not just the record numbers, though, that raise eyebrows. (And it's not only happening in college football: Look at NFL offenses, too.) After all, offense has always increased throughout football history. What's different is how quickly offensive output is increasing.

College football scoring is up 10 percent from 2009 to 2013, the largest increase in a five-year period since 1979-83. Points per game historically goes up by 1 percent to 5 percent over five-year intervals.

Total yards are up 9 percent in the past five years, marking the biggest spike since 1964-68. Generally, total offense increases or decreases by about 1 percent over five-year periods.

Offensive plays are up 6 percent over the past five years, the biggest jump since 1964-68. That statistic never increased by more than 1 percent over five-year intervals during the previous 40 years.

ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit said he believes offenses have tipped too far out of balance competitively compared to defenses.

"I don't care for it," Herbstreit said. "I'm an offensive guy. I'm a former quarterback. I like offense, but I don't like where it's heading. It's the tempo. It's the 90-snaps-a-game mentality. Do I get why they're doing it? Yeah. Do I enjoy it? No."

Malzahn said the reason for more scoring begins with better-prepared quarterbacks from high schools who operate in wide-open offenses. As for claims that the game is out of whack, "they had the same rules pretty much for a long time, and I just think what you see is people adjusting to playing their strengths," Malzahn said. "You look at football, and it usually evolves and goes back, and it's just challenging the defenses, and defenses are challenging a little bit more than they were in the past."

Akron coach Terry Bowden, whose Auburn offenses in the 1990s put up high scores, has a simple answer for defenses: Get three-and-outs. This offensive era is nothing more than a cyclical phase in the game's history, Bowden said.

"Put it this way: If we're sitting around the house at the Bowden family and say, hey Dad (Bobby Bowden), what's your favorite offense, he'd say, 'Back in the '40s I liked the straight T, then the wing T, then the I-formation, then the split-veer option, then the West Coast offense,'" Terry Bowden said. "Uptempo offense is a phase that defenses will adjust to and I think it's already slowed down, to be honest with you."

Still, this discussion isn't going away. The biggest dialogue for the NCAA Rules Committee this offseason will be pace of play, said SEC officiating coordinator Steve Shaw.

"The question needs to be debated and I'm not answering it: Do we think the competitive balance between offense and defense is where the game should be?" Shaw said. "And then, how much does pace of play impact that and what are the potential changes or not?"

What defines a good defense now?

Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston got a kick out of watching the SEC this season. The conference that prides itself on defense saw its teams allow 24.7 points and 361.3 total yards per game -- both records since the SEC split into divisions in 1992.

Part of the high scoring in the SEC can be attributed to a plethora of talented quarterbacks and the loss of some talented defensive players last year. Still, SEC defenses have allowed 23 points or more per game in three of the past four years -- something that happened only once from 1992 to 2009.

"Defenses don't know how to stop certain offense," Winston said. "I talk about it in the SEC a lot. Like with Johnny Manziel, people saying Missouri will never be able to adjust in the SEC but it's hard to stop a dynamic offense when they have so many assets to it. That's what I like about watching teams like Missouri and when Boise State used to be good I used to watch teams like that."

ESPN analyst David Pollack, a former Georgia star, is still a defensive lineman by heart. There was one play in the Iron Bowl that frustrates him more than any: Nick Marshall's game-tying touchdown with the triple-option effect.

Marshall, Auburn's super-quick quarterback, ran to the edge and threw to a wide-open Sammie Coates when an Alabama defensive back came in to defend the pass. But that's not what annoyed Pollack the most. It was the deception at the offensive line that indicated the play would be a run.

"This is why offenses are going crazy," Pollack said. "I read my keys. I'm taught to be disciplined. Well, those keys are telling me it's run. They're blocking run so I play run. And then it becomes a pass. It's taken out the ability to have great eyes and be very disciplined. Because it isn't about reading your keys. Your keys are lying to you. Your keys are wrong. And then throw the hurry-up on top of that."

The amount of offense has redefined what it means to be a good defense. Many offenses are going to get their yards -- and in many cases, points as well.

"Now I think it's stops in the red zone, takeaways and limiting explosive plays," said Johnson, Auburn's defensive coordinator.

By those measurements, Auburn ranks eighth nationally in red-zone defense, 96th in takeaways, and 104th in explosive plays allowed (defined in this instance as plays of 20 yards or more). Florida State is 24th in red-zone defense, tied for third in takeaways, and first in explosive plays allowed.

But advanced statistics in football now tell different stories. Auburn's defense ranks 13th in the country in FootballOutsiders.com's efficiency ratings. The Fremeau Efficiency Index (FEI) measures a team drive by drive compared to other teams that faced the same opponent.

Seminoles defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt, whose team ranks fifth in the FEI, believes only points allowed matters. In one breath, Pruitt said he believes the game hasn't shifted too far to offense. In the next, he wonders how to stay on the low end of points allowed as scoring goes up.

"You kind of look at our goals and if you match your goals, then you're going to be in the top two or three in every statistical category," Pruitt said. "The thing is you just find a good way to win."

Alabama ranks fourth nationally in points allowed at 13.9 per game. Yet in three games against the best no-huddle teams it played -- Texas A&M, Auburn and Oklahoma -- the Crimson Tide allowed 42, 34 and 45 points, respectively. Now even Saban has suggested using tempo more in his offense.

"There's a reason these offenses play 90 miles an hour and that's to wear you out," Pollack said. "If Nick Saban can't stop it, nobody can stop it."

Rules committee will discuss tempo

While it's true many offenses are often going faster, that's not the only purpose of the no-huddle. Offenses are sometimes not huddling but still snapping the ball slowly in order to get to the line of scrimmage and prevent the defense from changing personnel.

In the SEC, if the offense substitutes, the defense has a three-second window to react and begin to change players, said Shaw, the SEC officiating coordinator. But offenses tend to go stretches where they purposefully don't substitute. Even if the offense doesn't go fast, the defense can only sub at its own peril since the offense is ready to snap.

Offenses typically go faster after gaining a first down, as Gus Malzahn often does with Auburn.

Last June, Arkansas coach Bret Bielema -- a former member of the NCAA Football Rules Committee -- proposed a rules change that would create a 15-second substitution period after each first down for defenses to substitute. Bielema framed the proposal as as a player-safety issue.

Tempo is "a concern" for the rules committee, said Rogers Redding, the national coordinator of officiating. "One could argue tempo is safety-related since it makes the game quicker and runs more plays," Redding said. "But I think the issue would be -- and one of the things the committee is always interested in -- is what's the balance between offense and defense?"

The tricky part: This is the off year for the committee to make rules changes, unless it's in the name of safety. Shaw said he doesn't want to make a judgment yet whether there's a player-safety component to tempo. He is interested in how the off-year cycle will play into how the committee strategizes over tackling the tempo issue.

"I don't know what the vote would be (among SEC coaches) on pace, but it's probably split pretty evenly," Shaw said. "This is one that the coaches are really going to have to wrestle through."

Herbstreit said the concussion issue could always be a political land mine for the rules committee to change tempo. But unless data reveals tempo is a problem, Herbstreit doesn't see the scoring binge changing.

"Just tell fans, including me, we have to embrace this because this is not just the present state of college football, but it's the future," Herbstreit said. "If anything, it's going to get worse. More and more teams are going to go in this direction. If the Nick Sabans of the world say, 'I'm not a fan but it sure works and we're doing to do it,' how do you argue with it?"

Conference Offenses, 2013-14 (Average Per Game, One Team)