College football is looking to crack down on teams allegedly faking injuries, as the NCAA has approved a major rule change to combat the problem starting this season.
This week, the Playing Rules Oversight Panel has approved a change to injury timeout rules in football, beginning in the 2025-26 season, the NCAA announced.
Under the new rule, if medical personnel are forced to enter the field of play to evaluate an injured player after the ball is spotted by the officiating crew, the player’s team will be charged a timeout by officials.
If that team has no timeouts remaining, then officials will assess a five-yard penalty against it.
A proposal to confront perceived fake injuries was introduced by the NCAA Football Rules Committee this offseason after a consensus grew that some teams had asked their players to feign injuries in order to slow the momentum of a game and avoid taking a timeout.
One prominent case of an apparently faked injury came when Ole Miss running back Matt Jones fell to the ground during a game in September.
At the time, college football rules analyst Matt Austin confirmed that the NCAA’s rule book doesn’t proscribe fake injuries directly, leaving officials without recourse to punish the act.
“There’s actually nothing in the rule book that says you cannot do that,” Austin said on the broadcast.
“There is very strong wording about being unethical to fake an injury at any time during the game. I know the rules-makers have talked about it several times, but as of right now, there’s nothing you in the book can do about it.”
Kirk Herbstreit also recently called out the practice of apparently faking injuries “unethical as hell.”
“This is college football. It drives me crazy,” Herbstreit said during a game.
“They look over after a big play, and all of a sudden, he looks over and he just goes down. 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.’”
Now, the NCAA hopes it has found a solution to a problem that college football wants an answer to before the kickoff of the 2025 season.
The attempt to reign in fake injuries was not the only change to rules in football the NCAA approved this week. Five other rule changes will come into effect in 2025:
─ Referees are now limited to announcing whether a play that requires instant replay is “upheld” or “overturned” rather than saying the words “confirmed” or “stands”.
─ Offensive players are not allowed to be directly behind the snapper and between the place kicker or punter for the formation to qualify as a scrimmage kick. Teams that don’t utilize the scrimmage kick formation must have 5 players numbered 50-79 on the line. If the snapper is located at the end of the line based on the formation, they will lose scrimmage kick protection allowing the opposing team to line a player over the snapper.
─ If a player on the kick return team makes a “T” signal with their arms at any point during the kick procedure, the team loses the right to return the kick and the play is whistled dead.
─ A defense that commits a foul with more than 11 players on the field coming out of the two-minute timeout of either half will receive a five-yard penalty, and the offense will have the right to reset the clock to the original start time of the play. The option to reset the clock will not be given if the 12th player is trying to leave the field and has no influence on the play.
─ Coach-to-player communication, implemented in FBS in 2024, is now an option for FCS teams.
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