The Southeastern Conference is taking action against players who fake injuries to get timeouts.
In a letter sent to coaches and athletic directors that was shared with The Associated Press on Friday, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey instructed teams to “stop any and all activity related to faking injuries to create timeouts.” Yahoo Sports first reported on this letter.
The league also changed an existing rule to make it easier to punish coaches and teams for these violations. Now, if the national coordinator for football officiating believes it is likely that an injury was faked, it will be treated as such and could result in a penalty.
“Your team should be prepared to compete fairly under the rules of the game,” Sankey wrote.
Before this change, teams needed to submit video evidence for review, but now the SEC office can ask for a video review when necessary.
“When defending against a ‘hurry up’ offense, you should use your timeouts if you need to stop play or allow the play to continue with your current players and defensive call,” Sankey stated. “On offense, if the play clock is about to run out, you should use a timeout or accept a delay of game penalty.
“Creating injury timeouts in these situations is not acceptable and is disrespectful to the game of college football.”
If a player is found to have faked an injury, they can clear that finding if they provide medical information showing that they really needed to stop the game for an injury.
