The last thing we need in college football is for officials to have more power over a game.
According to reports from Adam Rittenberg, the NCAA football rules committee has proposed a controversial new rule: charging a team a timeout or, if no timeouts are available, enforcing a delay-of-game penalty for players who appear to fake injuries after a play. Officiating chief Steve Shaw called it “a good solution to feigning injuries.” But let’s be honest—this is a disaster waiting to happen.
NCAA football rules committee has proposed charging a team timeout or, if no timeouts, a delay-of-game penalty for teams whose players appear to fake injuries after a play is over.
Officiating chief Steve Shaw: “We really think this is a good solution to feigning injuries.”
— Adam Rittenberg (@ESPNRittenberg) February 28, 2025
Officials, whether well-meaning or not, already get plenty wrong over the course of a game. We’ve all seen it. Questionable targeting calls, inconsistent pass interference flags, missed holdings—officiating is far from perfect. Now, imagine adding another responsibility to their plate: deciding in real time whether a player is faking an injury or actually hurt. The potential for this to end terribly shouldn’t be ignored here.
Picture this: a player takes a hard hit late in a close game. They go down, and an official—who isn’t a doctor—determines they’re faking and hits their team with a five-yard penalty or takes away a crucial timeout. Then, it turns out the player actually was hurt. Now, not only has the official made a poor judgment call, but they’ve also actively harmed a team for something that wasn’t even against the rules. That’s utterly ridiculous.
Instead of giving referees even more power, there’s a far simpler solution: if a player gets injured and play is stopped, they should be required to sit out the remainder of the drive. If they try to re-enter before the drive ends, an illegal substitution penalty could be enforced. This eliminates the incentive to fake injuries — at least to a point — without giving officials another opportunity to alter the outcome of games with subjective calls.
The last thing college football needs is for referees to have more control over the game, especially when it comes to something as serious as player injuries.
I hate the fake injuries as much as anyone, but let’s find a solution that works without introducing yet another way for officials to insert themselves into the action. Let’s not turn referees into medical experts on top of everything else.
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