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Faking an injury to stop the clock is certainly not a new strategy in college football, but the age-old practice has attracted increased scrutiny over the past few years as it’s become increasingly difficult to ignore. It seemed like a crackdown was coming, and we now have some insight into what it may look like after the NCAA unveiled a tentative plan to tackle the issue.
Anyone who watches college football on a regular basis is likely familiar with the scene that frequently unfolds toward the end of games where a team that’s either out of timeouts or is trying to preserve the ones it has would benefit from a break in the action: a player who was seemingly fine suddenly collapse to the turf to force a whistle that stops the clock as they’re being tended to.
Faking an injury to gain an advantage may be an unsportsmanlike and unethical strategy, but it’s nonetheless been harnessed by plenty of teams who take advantage of the fact they can’t be punished for deploying it.
Ole Miss was widely painted as one of the most egregious offenders last season, and it became an issue to the point where SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey sent a strongly worded letter to every team instructing them to “play football and stop the feigned injury nonsense” while pledging to fine offenders who declined to adhere to that edict.
Earlier this year, the minds who gathered at the American Football Coaches Association conference floated a potential solution that would require any player who goes down to sit out the remainder of the drive (the only way they could return is if their team uses a timeout after they head back to the sidelines).
It was certainly an aggressive antidote when you consider it didn’t account for situations where a player was legitimately in pain, and while it seems like there was a chance the NCAA’s football rules committee could end up adopting it, it appears they’re trending toward a slightly less extreme approach.
According to The Athletic, the committee in question has unveiled a proposal that could go into effect next season pending an official vote that would result in a team being docked a timeout if a player appears injured after the ball is spotted for the snap.
An astute reader may notice that doesn’t account for situations where they don’t have any timeouts; in those cases, they’d be hit with a 5-yard delay of game penalty for each infraction.
It does seem like a step in the right direction, so it will be interesting to see if the plan is officially adopted before the start of the 2025 campaign.