Two-Minute ‘Timeout’ or Two-Minute ‘Warning’? College Football’s Hottest Question, Explained

College football introduced a new rule this season, but the biggest debate about the rule has nothing to do with the change itself. Instead, we can’t seem to agree on what to call it.

Is it the “two minute timeout” or the “two minute warning”?

The term for stopping an American football game two minutes into the second and fourth quarters has become such a hot topic that even television commentators mock the term “timeout,” comparing it to the “warning” the NFL has used for decades.

“There’s a new two-minute timeout. We’ve been asked not to call it a warning,” ESPN’s Rece Davis said during the Week 1 broadcast of the USC-LSU game.

“There is a new two-minute timeout. We have been asked not to call it a warning.” – Rece Davis 🏈🎙️ photo.twitter.com/URmtnhJM0I

— Terrible announcement (@awfulannouncing) September 2, 2024

Last Thursday, during the NFL season opener between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Baltimore Ravens, NBC’s Mike Tirico brought up the honor again.

“When we get to the two-minute warning — we can call it the two-minute warning in the NFL, not the two-minute timeout like they do in college,” Tirico said, laughing. “I’ve been waiting all weekend to do that. … You’ve been warned.”

“We can call it the two-minute warning in the NFL. Not the two-minute timeout like they do in college. I’ve been waiting all weekend to do that.”

Mike Tirico enjoyed doing it. photo.twitter.com/NMUYnsbYZj

— Terrible announcement (@awfulannouncing) September 6, 2024

It doesn’t really matter, but it is a little strange, right? So what’s going on? And could it change?

The original two-minute warning dates back to 1942, when NFL stadiums had only analog clocks and game time was kept by on-field officials. The stoppage was literally a warning, with the official alerting teams when there were two minutes left in each half. College football never adopted it.

Then in February, then The Athletics When news broke that the NCAA Rules Committee was discussing adding a two-minute stoppage, NCAA Coordinator of Officials Steve Shaw told me that they wouldn’t call it a “two-minute warning.” I responded with good humor that people would call it that anyway. When the rule and its official name were formally introduced in March, I had the opportunity to be the first to ask questions of the Rules Committee. My second question was why they didn’t call it a two-minute warning. I know, this is harsh stuff.

Shaw responded on behalf of the entire committee that it is not a warning because people can see the clock: “We’re not warning anyone about anything, so we’re going to use those words,” he said of the phrase “time out.”

To Shaw and the committee it may have seemed so simple, but in practice the name has caused some confusion in the early weeks of the season.

Many fans first noticed the rule change in July when EA Sports College Football 25 was released. But in the video game, the timeout is referred to as a two-minute warning, including in pre-recorded commentary by Chris Fowler and Davis.

Two weeks into the season, I checked in with Shaw again. Yes, he saw the jokes.

“Our TV partners have been very understanding that the name is a little bit different than the NFL,” he said. “There’s been some jokes about it here and there, but I think it describes what it really is. It’s that timeout. … We don’t warn anybody. Everybody knows what time it is. We just called it that.

“We didn’t think it would be a big thing and that anyone would talk about it. But it’s funny. Whether it’s gotten more attention, I don’t know. But I think we’ve got the language down and everyone understands it.”

It may just be semantics, but not everyone has fully embraced the term. Coaches and executives still say “warning” in casual conversation, so much so that there is support for changing the name to align with the NFL.

“The Big Ten would be in favor of using a two-minute warning,” a Big Ten source said. The Athletics“It matches the terminology currently in use and is familiar to our fans.”

I also reached out to EA Sports. The company has no plans to change the use of “warning” in the game, and no one has asked for it.

I asked Shaw and several people in the sport about fan speculation that the phrase “two-minute warning” is trademarked or somehow protected by the NFL. No one had heard of that speculation and they didn’t think it would be a problem even if it was. Shaw said the word “timeout” was simply the beginning of the rules committee.

One valid criticism of the two-minute timeout that some fans have raised: It’s not necessarily a two-minute timeout, which adds to the confusion. During Week 0, they were each two minutes and 30 seconds long in the Florida State-Georgia Tech game and exactly two minutes long in the SMU-Nevada game. The length of the break depends on how many TV timeouts a broadcast has built into a game.

Regardless of the name, Shaw said the rule is working as intended so far. He said the first few weeks of the season have seen only one instance of TV timeouts on back-to-back plays. With the security of a fixed TV timeout position late in the half, broadcasters feel less pressure to create back-to-back breaks to fit in the right number of commercials, a practice everyone hates. The new timeout doesn’t add an extra commercial break to the totals of previous years. It also helped with college football’s clock stop and the 10-second runoff rule changes that go into effect in the final two minutes. The only part that’s still a work in progress is coaches’ understanding of how to use the extra stop to their advantage.

Shaw said the two-minute timeout hasn’t increased playing time so far, though it’s too early to tell if that will continue. He also noted that anecdotally, he’s seen more huddling since coach-to-player helmet communication was allowed, so it’s hard to tease out the impact of each new rule. The Football Bowl Subdivision’s average number of plays per game so far this year (66.2) is virtually unchanged from last season’s average (66.9).

College fans get used to the two-minute timeout because they’ve seen it their entire lives in the NFL. As college football adjusts its own rules to more closely match the NFL’s, giving it a different name feels like an unnecessary quirk. The red zone isn’t literally red. It’s okay if the two-minute warning isn’t a warning, right?

Apparently not. So if you’re in the TV booth on a given day covering a football match, make sure you do it right.

(Photo: Michael Hickey/Getty Images)