The college football landscape has changed.

I was never totally convinced of that until I heard such words uttered by Slippery Rock University coach George Mihalik the other day.

Mihalik is in his 26th year as head coach of The Rock. He’s among the winningest coaches all-time in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference and is SRU’s all-time wins leader.

Much of that legacy has been built on physical, aggressive, hard-hitting defense. “Relentless” is a word the Rock coaches and players like to use in describing their defense.

With Shippensburg and Harlon Hill Trophy (NCAA Division II’s version of the Heisman) winning quarterback Zach Zulli in town this weekend, Mihalik conceded that the Red Raiders were going to score their points and it was pretty much up to the Rock offense to move the ball and answer those points on the scoreboard.

It was a little hard to hear those words.

But they are true.

More and more college teams at all levels are running sophisticated, up-tempo spread attacks. The play clocks behind each end zone are rarely needed these days.

SRU ran off 110 offensive plays last week. The average number of plays run by an offense in a typical NFL game is no more than 70.

Shippensburg coach Mark Maciejewski had a telling response to the question of how his team will answer The Rock’s quick-paced offense.

“We’ll be as fast as they are,” he said.

Don’t doubt that.

Shippensburg scored 83 touchdowns last year. The team averaged 529.92 yards per game, tops in Division II. Its 46.8 points scored per game was second-most in the nation.

Mihalik said Rock defensive coordinator Shawn Lutz refers to today’s college game as “fast-break football.”

Consider this. During SRU’s three straight Division II playoff seasons from 1997-99, only seven of The Rock’s 30 regular season Division II opponents scored more than 17 points.

Last year, nine of SRU’s 11 Division II foes scored at least 20 points and six scored more than 30.

And it’s not like SRU has stopped recruiting and developing quality defensive players. The Rock is well-represented defensively on all-conference teams year in and year out.

College football simply isn’t the game it once was.

Woody Hayes’ three yards and a cloud of dust offenses at Ohio State have been replaced by three receivers to one side and good luck covering everybody.

The cloud of dust has been replaced by clouds of smoke created from scorched turf.

The average fan in any sport in this day and age loves offense and loves points.

And that’s OK.

But visualizing SRU running back Rick Magulick plodding through the mud at N. Kerr Thompson Stadium 15 years ago still brings a smile to my face.