The NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel approved an option to add a third referee to conduct all video challenge reviews in women's volleyball, beginning in the 2020 season.
The addition of the third referee is optional for schools and conferences due to the financial implications.
Over the past two seasons, the Southeastern Conference experimented with having a third official handle video challenge reviews. In 2019, the average video review in the SEC was completed in 1 minute, 10 seconds. In NCAA women's volleyball matches in which the second referee handled those duties last year, the reviews were completed in an average of 1:29.
NCAA Women's Volleyball Rules Committee members liked the optics of having a third person, who was not involved in the original call, to review coach's challenges.
The panel also approved the following women's volleyball rules proposals:
- Assessing teams an administrative red card for uniform violations and having teams with uniform violations start the match down 1-0 in the first set.
- Combining decisions regarding in/out/touch, net and antenna faults into one challengeable action. This allows the referee to call the first fault seen on the review.
- Allowing coaches to challenge any play when the decision is based on whether a player touched the ball, including back-row attacks and illegal blocks, or whether a player illegally reached over the net.
- Allowing either coach to challenge a fault that occurred before a replay.
- Allowing players to wear shorts or leggings, provided all teammates wear the same color.
Allowing line judges to provide input when requested by the first referee on decisions involving whether the ball or a player touched an antenna or whether a player played the ball in a nonplayable area.