Randy Smith
The National Football Foundation announced this week its rule changes for the upcoming college football season and among the changes is a crackdown on players faking injuries to stop the clock and slow down an up-tempo offense. That nonsense started a few seasons ago when Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin ordered his players to hit the deck to slow down Josh Heupel's fast-paced Tennessee offense. It happened time and time again and the end result was several Volunteer fans throwing objects like bottles and golf balls at Kiffin.
You can't really blame them. After all, Kiffin left Tennessee in the middle of the night to go to Southern Cal back in late 2009 after coaching the Vols for just one season.
It's not just Kiffin. Other coaches caught on to the feigning of injuries to interrupt certain teams offensive flow. Or offensive teams would fake an injury just to get an extra timeout or to avoid a delay of game penalty. Here is what the foundation intends to do. If a player fakes an injury after the ball is spotted for play, his team is charged a timeout. If that team is out of timeouts a five yard delay of game penalty is assessed. In addition, that player must sit out at least one play even if the team is charged with a timeout and he must be cleared to get back in the game by medical personnel. The question I have is this: how do you know when a player is faking an injury? That's the really sticky part. Should a team be penalized if a player is actually injured on the field? Of course not. It will be interesting to see just how the game officials handle things. In the meantime, I'm sure Coach Kiffin is working on ways to get around it.
Also, the rules committee has issued an order for game officials to use different verbiage when a play is reviewed. In years past the referee would say, "The call is confirmed." or "stands." Now, the guys in the white hats will say, "The call is upheld." I actually prefer the confirmed call rather than one that's upheld but I'm not on the rules committee.
Another rule change of note is time outs in overtime periods. Previously each team received a timeout for each overtime period. Now, the teams will get one for each of the first two overtime periods, but only one more for the remainder of the game, starting with overtime number three.
Rule changes from year to year are as much a part of the game as tailgating and shoulder pads. Some of them are good and some are not really necessary. I wholeheartedly agree with the new rule about faking injuries but changing the verbiage on play reviews....not so much.
* * *
Randy Smith can be reached at rsmithsports@epbfi.com