DESTIN, Fla. — There’s just one thing wrong with the new tweak to the NCAA football instant replay rule, in which starting this season a head coach will get a chance to challenge a call once per game.

Unlike the NFL, where a coach gets to throw a flag on the field to stop play and challenge a call, college coaches like Arkansas’ Houston Nutt merely will call a timeout to stop play.

If a coach wins the instant replay challenge, his team doesn’t get charged a time out.

But where’s the fun of just calling a timeout? You’d think after coaches have had their teams flagged for years, that they’d get a chance to throw their own flag at an official.

"I was looking forward to warming up my throwing arm," said a laughing Nutt at the annual SEC spring business meetings.

Last season, the first in which instant replay was used by most Division I-A conferences, no coaching challenges were allowed. An instant replay official in an isolated press box booth reviewed every play and made decisions to stop games for a thorough review to either uphold the ruling on the field or overturn it.

The rule was changed on Tuesday to add one coaching challenge. If the challenge fails, that team will be charged a timeout.

Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville, who’s part of the NCAA football rules committee, said a coach having one challenge per game is a nice addition.

"Having a challenge will give coaches an opportunity to maybe settle down their players on a play that might be controversial," Tuberville said. "We had a few plays like that last year."

Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer said he didn’t think that having the chance to challenge a call is necessary, but glad it’s now available.

"They (the officials) should get every play right, but if they don’t you can buy yourself a little time by using a timeout for a challenge," Fulmer said. "I was a big advocate of replay before last season, and there were about three plays that went against us that I’d rather not had replay. But I thought the system worked wonderfully, though there’s still plays that aren’t reviewable. Officials want to get it right".

Alabama coach Mike Shula thinks having the chance to challenge one call is a positive.

"When you have the opportunity to change something that was obvious to everybody but not as obvious to an official, then it’s good for the game," Shula said. "We had to call timeouts one or two times last year to make sure the officials had enough time to think about stopping play to review games."

Georgia coach Mark Richt said he also called a couple of timeouts last season to make sure officials had time to decide whether to review a play.

"One time, I even called timeout to get a measurement and I couldn’t even get one during a 3½ minute TV timeout," Richt said. "I guess since we have this new way of doing something, I can specifically ask for something.

"I was against having the chance to challenge one call. That’s one more thing to worry about. My feeling is if I don’t have good enough information to throw it. The fans maybe be booing after a (disputed play) or my players might be telling me to ‘Coach, throw the flag!’ But if I throw it at the wrong time, I might lose a timeout.

"Yet, if I see something happen right in front of me that I think is wrong, I’m sure I’d love to toss it."

Ole Miss coach Ed Orgeron said he saw at least one officiating decision almost every game last year that he would have loved to have had a chance to protest.

"I like having a challenge now," Orgeron said. "It’s a big advantage over last year."

South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier, who coached the NFL’s Washington Redskins in a league that has coaching challenges for instant replay, said he’d always get plenty of information from his coaches in the press box watching replays whether to challenge a disputed play.

"We got one a half in the NFL, and I probably threw as many as anybody else," Spurrier said. "I’d always have a coach screaming (in the headset), ‘Coach, he caught it, he caught it! It’s not incomplete. Throw the flag! Throw the flag!’ Believe me, having the chance to throw one flag is enough. You don’t want to slow down the game."

Rogers Redding, who is taking over as the SEC’s supervisors of officials, served last season as a replay official. He has no problem with coaches having a challenge.

"My guess we probably won’t see many challenges, because we’ll be on top of it," Redding said. "But we’re very comfortable with it. I think it gets coaches looking at plays from an officiating standpoint. That could be a help to us."