The college football season kicks off in nine days, and the NCAA has made teams aware that they will not tolerate teams faking injuries to stop the clock. New rules were announced on Wednesday to combat the practice and will go into effect at the beginning of regular season play.
How often do players fake injuries?
There are no statistics outlining how many players faked an injury to stop the clock during the past few seasons, but the NCAA made putting an end to the tactic an offseason priority.
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ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit called out the practice when Oklahoma faced Tennessee in 2024.
“It drives me crazy, they look over after a big play, and all of a sudden, he looks over and he just goes down,” Herbstreit said. “It’s not necessarily against the rules, but it’s unethical as hell. When you see this all over against these tempo offenses, guys just go down with the quote-unquote ‘injury.’”
Faking an injury to stop the clock, as Herbstreit points out, is used to slow down up-tempo offenses that tend to confuse a defense or make them tired by running their next play quickly, and sometimes without a huddle. The delay tactic can also be used as a way for a team to get an extra timeout.
How will the NCAA stop it?
Starting this season, that will not be possible. The new rules say that if a player goes down injured after the ball is spotted by the officiating crew and medical personnel go onto the field of play, the player’s team will be charged a timeout. If the team has no timeouts left, officials will assess a five-yard delay of game penalty.
Georgia head coach Kirby Smart cochairs the NCAA Football Rules Committee that debated the issue in April. The committee believed faking injuries was negatively impacting the game’s reputation.
“The committee identified the time period after the ball has been spotted as the most egregious violations of the injury timeout rule and is addressing the issue this way,” Smart said. “Having a set time frame of when the game is stopped for an injured player should hopefully help curtail the strategy of having players fake injuries.”
Are there any other new rules?
To further discourage intentionally going down, injured players must miss at least one play, even if a timeout is used, and they will not be permitted to return until the team’s medical staff has formally cleared them. There are several other rule changes for 2025 as well, including teams getting fewer timeouts in overtime. There are also enhanced rules against a defense simulating a snap and having 12 men on the field to try to stop the clock.
