Disturbing college football trend...players faking injuries to slow down no-huddle
 

It is becoming a farce in college football watching players flop to slow down no-huddle offenses. Houston pulled the stunt three or four times in the game against Louisiana Tech this week.

The NCAA needs to institute the CFL injury rule...if a player has to be attended to on the field, that player must sit out for at least three plays. It is going to take a rule change like this to stamp out this disturbing trend in unethical coaching tactics.

Faking injuries is listed in the front of the rule book under Coaching Ethics. If this is being allowed or coached then they have violated the spirt of competition. This is a sensistive area because who are we, as officials, to determine if he was faking. I think this is why the NCAA doesn't make it a foul because if we flag a player "faking" and then it turns out he truly was injured, we have pie all over our face. What the rules do allow is for us to reset the play clock to 40 seconds for a Team B injury, but that only helps the offense who is trying to run out the clock.

This stuff came up last year and the NCAA made several statements last year about how this is poor sportsmanship.

+1 JasonTX

I don't think I've ever seen it happen at the HS level, but then again I don't really KNOW if a player is truly injured. Nor, as an official, do I want to be put in a position where I have to guess if the injury is real or not.

Came up at the end of last season too as it was rampant on the west coast........

BTW, I know you are not talking to me personally.
 

You can take off a lot of time if this is done multiple times. I honestly do not see the benefit of teams doing this, especially in the closing minutes or when time is a big factor.

Peace

This very thing happened last night in MNF, and if I'm Tom Coughlin, I would be ashamed and embarrassed. That was absolutely the most pathetic thing I've ever seen an NFL team pull.

Complete garbage.

That (wasting time) was not the OP's issue. He was talking about faking injury to slow down no-huddle offenses. I saw the Houston - Louisville game he referred to, and it was rather obvious to me as well (at least on TV --- possibly not so obvious on the field ... and I agree with the above who state that he, as an official, would not want to be put into a situation of guessing which injuries were real and which were just to give the defense time to breathe and/or substitute)

Good grief.

Goodell should issue large fines & "nip it in the bud".

That's fine for the league, which has investigators and enforcement powers for post-game inquiries. Hard to see how this would work for HS games. :(

My simple point is there are some remedies already in place, not saying they completely works or that is stops all the time, but there is a risk of doing this. I would have no problem if the rules changed to take a player out for series or more than one play. I just do not want to get to a point where we try to figure out as officials if someone is really hurt and start making judgments based on if we think that someone is really hurt.

Peace

This story may have some legs......
 

Did the Giants fake injuries to slow down St. Louis?

From the article:

"It's no place for the referee to judge if a player is truly hurt, and the NFL would only fine individuals and teams for such behavior if they admitted it, NFL spokesman Greg Aiello tells Pro Football Talk."

Most importantly, you can take a survey! ;)

We'll see how long this policy lasts when the consequence-free faking starts to impact the game. :rolleyes:

fixed it for you

According to this article:
NFL to crack down on teams using fake injuries

The NFL is going to use its resources to try to identify gamesmanship issues. That's well and good for them.

From a JV and HS level that I and most folks call at, the options are fewer. Even if you notice a pattern, it's not possible to prove. While the rules do permit the referree to take whatever action he deems necessary to correct unsporting acts, you first have to KNOW that it is an unsporting act and not a genuine injury. Couple this with a "boy who cries wolf" problem--the first two or three times a kid goes down he could be faking, but if you then act on the wrong one-the genuine injury-you've got egg in your face.

The only recourse that becomes available to me is to record all the conditions that I can regarding a series of apparent fake injuries, and report the situation to the association and state offices after the fact. They can review the tape, interview people, and award forfeits or other action as needed. On the field, unless I can PROVE that the kid is faking (practically impossible, as I am not a P.I. or a doctor), the only thing I can do is call the officials' timeout and take notes.

Thanks for the thoughtful responses in this thread.

Officials on the field should not be put in a position of trying to figure out whether an injury is being faked or not. On-field responsibilities just don't allow it. In my mind that just leaves the only recourse as making players sit for longer than one play if they have to be attended to on the field.

Administering that rule change would certainly be better than trying to read intent on the field. That job should be left to conference commissioners if evidence piles up game after game. If it does, head coaches need to be suspended for unethical coaching practices.

The only possible way I could ever tell if a player was faking an injury would be if I actually heard a coach say something like "someone fall down" or heard a player, when being talked to by the team attendant, say something like "Everything's fine, I just wanted to slow them down".

And even then, I'm not sure there's much I could do about it. Could probably throw a USC flag under the "unfair acts" rule, but that's about it.