With the advent of the 40" clock came the thoughts of adding visible play clocks. The expense of adding the field clocks would require many bake sales as it would need not only the clocks but the play clock operator itself as it would be deemed to be a booster's club, not the school's expense. When we went from four to five man crews several years ago, a major selling point was the BJ signaling the delay of game countdown. The majority of coaches were happy with that and felt no need for a visible clock then or now.
Only a few of our schools hire an official to run the game clock now and several times we've had to throw the ball (stopwatch) to the LJ for the game clock because of incompendence. Our officiating numbers are thin and it would be a challenge to supply all schools with GCO's if wanted. Thanks for the input ,Elvis, and I'm sure where football is huge in Texas, these are not problems for you guys. I understand official's pay is based on gate receipts there ….in Maine, if we used that , some officials would only receive pocket change 
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Oh, there are problems. Believe me. Yes, there are a limited number of locations that have enough members in the TASO units that cover their contests that the TASO units can assign GCOs/PCOs to those contests. However, the vast majority of GCOs and PCOs in Texas are provided by the host institution. Many of those folks are school board members, teachers, or just community members. You may not believe this, but there is NO formal training program for clock operators in Texas. Neither by the UIL (statewide athletics governing body - actually a component of the University of Texas), nor by TASO (state wide independent officiating organization for the major Texas high school athletic sports).
Of the four playoff games my crew worked this year, only one host site provided an experienced and competent PCO. But, I will give HER props - she was exceptionally good. I wish I had her at every game. But, for the second consecutive year, three games deep into playoffs - at the SAME HOST INSTITUTION (a 'neutral site') - we had a play clock operator that had never run a play clock previously. Totally nuts. And, yes, there were problems. Despite as thorough of a pre-game conference as we could provide with him, we were frequently having to pump him to 25 and hold for my signal after punts, or to 40 and start after kickoffs. This was the week after we had the exceptionally good PCO (whose home institution was not involved in playoffs). So, I wondered: If your regular PCO isn't available, why not call some other area institutions and see if their regular PCO might be able to help out? Apparently they think it is easy, and anybody can do it, at a moment's notice.
At another 'neutral' host institution, they also had a PCO that had never run a play clock previously. When asked why their regular PCO wasn't doing this, the answer was: "Well, this isn't our game, and its hunting season." Same kinds of problems.
Regular season games are not quite so bad, because they do, usually, have PCOs that have experience. But, we have to keep an eye on things.
Having given all of these 'negative' things, I will now say that properly operated visible play clocks make for a far, far smoother and better officiated game. I would have said that even when we only had the 25-second interval. But it is even more true, nowadays, with the 40-second - and automatic - interval. If the B has to try to keep the 40-second clock, and he is expected to start it at the proper moment, then he has to neglect dead-ball officiating while he checks his watch or starts his belt-mounted timer. This interferes with management of players and ball handling, at the very least, or leads to very inconsistent play clock operation, none of which are good things. The independent PCO, starting/re-setting the play clock according to rule, leaves the on-field folks free to focus on the elements of the game that can become major control issues, if not tightly managed.
I've probably given you all kinds of 'con' reasons regarding visible play clocks. But, believe me, if you work a few games with visible play clocks that are reasonably well operated, you would never want to go back to keeping it on the field.
Try it. You'll like it.
