The NCAA changed a few rules for the 2009 football season. One of the biggest differences: There won't be any changes next year. The body decided to start changing rules biennially.
Some of the other changes:
Teams can now both wear colored jerseys as long as the home team agrees and the home team's conference agrees that the colors are sufficiently contrasting. This was done because USC was penalized for wearing red at UCLA last season. The Trojans were penalized a timeout after the kickoff, and UCLA took one immediately following to even things.
Conferences will review video of certain plays deemed dangerous due to helmet contact and, if necessary, impose further punishment. If a player is ejected, the review is required. NCAA rules officials said this was done more to emphasize safety than because of any incidents from last season.
Punters will lose special protection if they run outside of the tackle box before kicking the ball. This will apply to rugby-style punters, who will lose protection from roughing and running-into-the-kicker calls if they are more than 5 yards from either side of where the ball was snapped.
Another rule change rewrote the offensive formation rule to limit backfield players to four, thus eliminating illegal-formation penalties if only 10 men are on the field. Previously, the rule was written to require seven players on the line of scrimmage.
End-of-quarter penalties won't cause an extra play if the infraction results in a loss of down.