A year ago, college football and some of its most curmudgeonly coaches were messing around with the idea the sport was being played too quickly, and it was suggested that was one reason why people were getting hurt. OK. But what was being discussed was a 10-second rule that would keep teams from snapping the ball and thus mitigate an advantage offenses held over defenses.

That never happened, and in this round of postseason discussions about rule, sport and culture changes, we haven’t heard much about that at all. That’s a relief to the Big 12, one would think, because so many of its teams go so fast, and so many teams understood the purpose of that proposed change.

The Outlier is not yet out of the woods, though. We might be losing the pop pass and some of our packaged play concepts.

The NCAA rules committee has proposed changing the illegal man downfield penalty — Rule 7, Article 10 in the NCAA book — shortening the distance linemen can move downfield before the ball is thrown to 1 yard, which matches the NFL rule.

“I think it’s a rule that the defensive coaches are going to be very excited about,” Penn State defensive coordinator Bob Shoop said Thursday. “Specifically, the ones that are keying hard on the offensive line for their run-pass reads. I think that’s a big one right there for them.”

And, of course, offensive coaches — who fought off a proposal by the rules committee to slow down up-tempo attacks last year — see it differently.

“It’s the continuation of a trend where defensive people try to change the rules rather than try to stop the advances in offense,” said new Montana coach Bob Stitt, who used spread schemes at Division II Colorado School of Mines that were considered among the most creative in college football.

I don’t have as big of a problem with this, because offenses are so bold with this rule and basically dare officiating crews to call it, and it can be extremely advantageous if it’s allowed to get out of control — which does happen. And truth be told, there will still be teams that test the limits of a new rule, should one come. But I doubt many offensive coaches will like this, throughout the Big 12 and beyond, because so many teams have either featured or developed and thus thrived off of plays that put linebackers and safeties into conflict.