Standard replay system likely

? Upon further review, college football is likely to get one set of rules for instant replay instead of the conference-by-conference formats that led to confusion, frustration and mistakes during the bowl season.

Tweaking how and when to use replay was the most talked about topic Wednesday at the annual meeting of Division I-A football coaches. Officials with the American Football Coaches Assn. settled it for now by deciding to poll all 119 coaches next month to get a better grasp on what everyone thinks would be best.

“What will come out of this is there will be uniform rules set,” AFCA executive director Grant Teaff said. “What’ll most likely happen is that they’ll put in a rule: Here’s the standard. You either accept it or you don’t accept it. And I think nationally they’ll accept it.”

Teaff said he expected it to be resolved in time for the upcoming season.

In addition to replay, the AFCA will ask coaches their thoughts on creating a preseason that could include a scrimmage, a controlled practice or an exhibition game, eliminating Friday games, adopting the same play clock the NFL uses (40 seconds between plays, 25 after officials stop the clock) and having an early signing day for incoming players.

The 31â2-hour meeting Wednesday also included an unusually brief discussion of the Bowl Championship Series. The coaches agreed to let the BCS use their poll for the next four years – instead of one year at a time, as they’d been doing – and hardly had any recommendations to change the BCS format.

“I think this was the first year in which there was absolutely no question asked about where we’re at or how it’s working,” said Kevin Weiberg, the outgoing BCS leader and Big 12 commissioner.