Fake injuries could cost teams timeout, penalty

College football teams could soon be charged with a timeout or penalty for players faking injuries well after plays during games.

The NCAA football rules committee has proposed a timeout to be charged whenever medical personnel enter the field to evaluate players after the ball has been spotted for the ensuing play. Teams without timeouts would be assessed a five-yard delay-of-game penalty for each instance.

The proposal is among several that will go back to schools and then go before the NCAA’s playing rules oversight panel for possible approval in April.

Faking injuries has become a significant topic in recent years, with SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and others admonishing the practice. The SEC implemented guidelines that included fines and potential suspensions for coaches whose players repeatedly fake injuries. The American Football Coaches Association had proposed requiring any players who need medical attention to miss an entire possession, rather than only one play, but the rules committee instead proposed losing timeouts.

“If we have a player that’s struggling and the official stops the clock to get that player out, we will not invoke the timeout,” said Steve Shaw, the secretary-rules editor for football and the SEC and Sun Belt’s coordinator of football officials. “There’s these plays where the ball’s down, the defense is still trying to get to their side of the ball, and a player falls down. Those are the types of plays that we don’t want, that we think is a bad look, and we think this rule will address it.”

Shaw reiterated that legitimately injured players should stay down and require a stoppage to receive medical attention. But many of the suspicious instances occurred after the ball was spotted for the next play.

“Coaches value their timeouts incredibly,” Shaw said. “Making this a timeout, if a player were to wait and then go down very late, the coaches would really be against unless you’re really injured, and then they may have needed a timeout anyway.”

The rules committee also proposed limiting timeouts in games that reach the third overtime period or longer. Teams currently have a timeout for each overtime period, but the proposal would limit them to one total timeout after the second OT. The Georgia–Georgia Tech regular-season finale in November, which spanned eight overtime periods, included three timeouts after the second session, all before two-point conversion attempts.

“We didn’t want to create a situation where the offense goes out, looks at the defense, calls timeout, then they get back out there, the defense calls timeout,” Shaw said. “You see that in basketball a lot of time. That just prolongs the game. We said, ‘We’re going to give everybody a timeout.’ We’ll continue to monitor it.”

The overtime timeouts proposal was among several that could be tied to recent high-profile incidents. Another proposal would allow offenses to reset the game clock within two minutes of each half when a defense commits a penalty for too many men on the field and participates in the play.

Oregon received a 12-men-on-the-field penalty at the end of an Oct. 12 game against Ohio State, which resulted in a penalty but also removed four valuable seconds from the clock. Trailing 32-31, the Buckeyes tried to get closer for a field goal attempt, but the clock expired on the ensuing play, giving the Ducks the win.

The NCAA soon issued a new rules interpretation that seemingly closed the loophole and is in line with the latest rules committee proposal.

Another proposal would whistle kickoff returns dead any time the return team makes a “T” signal with its arms. The situation surfaced in the Citrus Bowl between Illinois and South Carolina, leading to a testy on-field exchange between coaches Bret Bielema and Shane Beamer.

“We don’t want to try to guess on where trends may be going,” said A.J. Edds, co-chair of the rules committee and vice president of football for the Big Ten. “We want to take real information and cite real instances to help inform perspectives before the committee collectively evaluates and potentially takes action. But not unlike other leagues, when something comes to light, whether it’s a play or a series of play or instances of plays, if there’s a way to improve the way that they’re officiated … that’s certainly at the forefront and the crux of all of our conversation.”

Other proposals included referees only using the terms “upheld” or “overturned” to describe replay rulings rather than “confirmed” or “stands” and the adoption of coach-to-player helmet communication for FCS teams after a successful first year in the FBS.

The rules committee had extensive discussions about targeting fouls and made a recommendation to the conference commissioners on College Football Officiating’s board of managers. But Shaw noted that the targeting rule as it’s defined — and whether to disqualify offenders or overturn — will not change.

“The targeting rule has served us very well,” Shaw said. “We had the lowest number of disqualifications, 0.14 targeting fouls enforced per game this year. I know fans think there’s one in every game, but there’s just not, so we’re going in the right direction. There was no back-away from targeting at all.”