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The NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel approved a change to the injury timeout rules this week aimed at curbing fake injuries to stop play in college football.
Under the rule change, teams will be charged a timeout if medical personnel have to enter the field of play to evaluate an injured player after the ball has been spotted for the next play. If the team does not have any timeouts remaining, that team will be hit with a 5-yard penalty for delay of game. The new rule will take effect immediately.
Injury stoppages have been used more and more in recent years by teams trying to either stop the clock or slow an opposing offense.
Until now, there has been very little officials could do about fake injuries in the moment. Teams could send clips of what they deemed to be questionable stoppages to the NCAA for review, and the offending team’s conference would be contacted if that review concluded a team was faking an injury, but that provided little relief after the fact.
As such, tension has boiled over within the coaching ranks.
“There’s not much the officials can do during the game, but certainly it’s a thing that we’ll discuss with the people above us,” South Carolina coach Shane Beamer said last fall. “The timing of some of the injuries, it’s a really bad look for college football and it’s not what this game’s about.”
During the 2024 season, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey even threatened fines and suspensions for multi-time offenders in a memo to teams demanding that they stop the practice.
“It’s clear that this nonsense, which was a word used, needs to stop. It’s silly,” said LSU head coach Brian Kelly. “The game doesn’t need to get to a level that you use that as a way to slow down the game one way or another.”
It’s a solid first step for the NCAA, providing officiating crews with an immediate, in-game mechanism to halt teams from gaming the clock.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
