The NCAA’s approval this week to use instant replay in all 28 Division I-A bowl games came at a perfect time. Through three weeks, replay has widely been lauded as a success around the country, credited with affirming critical calls in big games and overturning others that could have changed the outcome of key matchups.

Count Florida coach Urban Meyer as a major proponent of replay, especially after a call was overturned in the first half of the Gators’ game against Tennessee last week that negated a catch that would have given the Volunteers the ball at the Florida one-yard line.

“That was a big call,” Meyer said. “That was a hell of a change of events.”

Replay is being used this season in nine of 11 Division I-A conferences. Only the Sun Belt and Western Athletic Conference did not follow the lead of the Big Ten, which began using replay last season. Complaints, though minimal, still exist.

“I’m content to have any replay at all,” Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis said, “even though I think that it is a bit of a security blanket the way it stands. They can err on the side of being safe because they know that they have the backup.”

The concern before the season was that replay would cause already-long games to grow insufferable. Aside from one three-minute replay in the Florida State-Miami game, replays in most conferences have averaged less than two minutes.

“In defense of replay, I watched it on television and saw a number of different examples of why it worked out,” Southern California coach Pete Carroll said. “It just is not as much fun in the game. You stop and hang around and chat for a while. There is some good and bad to it. I have always liked the rhythm of it (the game), and I don’t like it being shifted.”