NCAA reportedly has plan to prevent players from faking injuries
By Austen Bundy
The 2024-25 college football season was full of exciting and historic moments, but one thing in particular left a subtle yet sour taste on what was otherwise a fantastic year.
Some fans may remember the scourge of fake injuries plaguing teams at multiple points this season. It happened so often — and so obviously — that even broadcast announcers began calling out the belligerent intent to slow down high-tempo offenses.
Kirk Herbstreit had some tough words for players faking injuries after it looked like Oklahoma did that against Tennessee.
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 22, 2024
"It drives me crazy...It’s not necessarily against the rules but it’s unethical as hell." pic.twitter.com/TSZ0onC4ug
Kirk Herbstreit and Chris Fowler were pretty sure that Tennessee's Omarr Norman-Lott was faking this injury.
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) November 17, 2024
"He's right here and looks to be fine. Looking over to the sideline and takes it down."
"When you look at the sidelines before going down, it's suspicious." pic.twitter.com/4UzFJYKcoC
But it appears the NCAA is going to address the fever pitch of complaints about what has seemingly turned into a culture problem in college football, similar to soccer and its over-the-top injury antics.
NCAA committee will consider new rule to punish fake injuries
According to a report from The Athletic's Chris Vannini, the NCAA's football rules committee will officially consider a change that will cost teams for players dropping to the ground with a potential injury. The new rule, proposed in January, would force an "injured" player to leave the field for the remainder of a drive and only have the opportunity to return if the head coach is willing to "buy" it with one of his timeouts. The rule would not apply to players injured by a hit that results in a penalty.
That seems like a rather reasonable consequence for those players "feigning injuries" and trying to buy time for the defense to recover after an offense finds momentum. However, one drawback includes the possibility of unnecessarily handicapping teams who experience consecutive legitimate, non-serious injuries.
Several players could be removed from entire drives, which could take significant portions of an entire quarter, for real injuries that go away rather quickly. For example, a cramp or a rolled ankle can be painful enough to force a player to go down but many times they alleviate within the same drive and that player is able to get back out onto the field.
Coaches and players may be hesitant to risk being scored on if a star player is removed from the game because they went to the ground. However, it's a start and a change worth evaluating and developing further to ensure "unethical" methods are not allowed to continue in college football.