One issue that has plagued college football in recent years is fake injuries. Players have faked getting hurt to give their teams what amounts to a free timeout. Some of these “injuries” have been obvious and obnoxious.
Advertisement
College football is cracking down on fake injuries!🙌
Teams could lose a timeout or get hit with a 5-yard penalty🔥🔥pic.twitter.com/tl5YvtUppq
— Grant (@NMDgrant) April 17, 2025
like I said… the fakest “injury” ever by Notre Dame’s Xavier Watts pic.twitter.com/w50uqG74ZP
— Zach Klein (@ZachKleinWSB) January 2, 2025
This fake injury was egregious 💀pic.twitter.com/E8Erv6UjBU
— DraftKings (@DraftKings) April 17, 2025
The NCAA is finally cracking down on this problem. (Savvy college football fans will understand my choice of featured image because of the egregiousness of fake injuries involving Coach Lane Kiffin’s Ole Miss Rebels.)
The Playing Rules Oversight Panel issued a modification to the injury timeout rules for football, and these new rules will take effect this fall. From the NCAA’s press release:
Under the new rule, if medical personnel enter the field to evaluate an injured player after the ball is spotted by the officiating crew for the next play, that player’s team will be charged a timeout.
If the team does not have any timeouts remaining, a 5-yard delay-of-game penalty will be assessed.
The injury timeout proposal was made by the NCAA Football Rules Committee after many in the college football community raised concerns about strategies in which players fake an injury to stop the opposition’s momentum or to avoid using an allotted timeout.
“We looked at a lot of video on these and saw many are occurring not at the end of the play, but after the play,” NCAA coordinator of officials Steve Shaw said in February, according to The Athletic. “So we think this will hit and take the incentive for a player to feign an injury after a play is over. We’ll monitor and see how it goes.”
Advertisement
The rule won’t apply to players who were limping or having difficulties getting to the next play before going down. Instead, it’s aimed at those egregious falls.
Recommended: Have We Reached a Tipping Point for NIL in College Athletics?
“It’s a less dramatic change than the proposal brought by the American Football Coaches Association, which asked that any player who went down for injury be required to sit out the rest of the drive,” reports Chris Vannini at The Athletic. “The concern with that proposal was that players who were actually injured would try to play through it.”
Reactions to the new rule were mixed, as a quick perusal of X demonstrates:
NCAA addresses fake injury concerns with new rule on injury timeouts.
While the NCAA feels like the issue is being handled, I contend that the loophole is simply being “tightened” and smart coaches and programs will still be able to take full advantagehttps://t.co/W37Xas4YE2
— Doug Samuels 🏈 (@CoachSamz) April 17, 2025
This is dumb. At somepoint this year some school is going to lose a game because of a late game quick spot with a no-huddle and the player is obviously injured and didn’t make it off the field and goes down. https://t.co/IlqIyr8Bbq
— scottwildcat (@scottwildcat) April 17, 2025
I like this rule. Injuries after the ball is spotted for the next play will result in forfeiture of a timeout (if the team has one). If the team doesn’t have a timeout, they will be assessed a 5 yard delay of game penalty.https://t.co/l5ogFt0Hds
— Lasching Out Podcast (@LaschingOutPod) April 17, 2025
Advertisement
Hopefully, this new rule will curtail these flagrant, silly fake injuries. Or maybe some of these players need to take some acting classes.
The NCAA instituted other new rules this week for football. Under one new rule, referees will only say that a reviewed call was “upheld” or “overturned.” The logic behind this change is that the language of a call being “confirmed” or “standing” was confusing to fans; I disagree because I thought it was helpful to know whether a call was confirmed (meaning that the evidence for it was clear) or whether it stood (meaning that there wasn’t enough evidence to overturn the questionable call).
Another rule change limits the number of timeouts teams have in overtime. This one was a direct response to the University of Georgia’s eight-overtime win over Georgia Tech (GO DAWGS!), during which both teams took multiple timeouts and prolonged a game that was already running insanely late.
All this talk is getting me ready for football season. How about you?
Sports are a lot of fun, but sometimes it can be tough to cut through the woke nonsense that has invaded every part of our culture these days. You can help us report on culture through an unfiltered lens by becoming a PJ Media VIP. Not only does your VIP membership come with some terrific benefits — exclusive content, podcasts, access to the comments section, and an ad-free experience — but it also helps us stay independent and avoid the self-appointed gatekeepers of the left-wing narrative.
There’s never been a better time to join the cool kids as a PJ Media VIP because right now, you can get 60% off a new membership with the promo code FIGHT.
