NCAA approves rule changes to combat players faking injuries - ESPN

In an effort to curtail players faking injuries, a concern that has permeated throughout college football for years, the NCAA announced Thursday that its Playing Rules Oversight Panel has approved changes to the injury timeout rules starting this fall.

Under the new rule approved Wednesday, if medical personnel enter the field to evaluate an injured player after the ball is spotted by the officiating crew for the next play, that player's team will be charged a timeout. If the team doesn't have any timeouts remaining, a 5-yard delay-of-game penalty will be assessed.

The proposal to adjust the injury timeout rule resulted from teams faking injuries to stop their opponents' momentum or avoid using an allotted timeout.

Prior to the 2021 season, the NCAA decided to allow schools or conferences to request that Steve Shaw, the NCAA secretary-rules editor/national coordinator of officials, conduct a postgame video review regarding questionable actions involving injuries.

If Shaw determined that a player had faked an injury to manipulate the rules, the offending team's conference was notified, and any possible disciplinary action could be made by the conference office.

The rule change for next season will provide an in-game way to curtail the faking of injuries because «Football Rules Committee members think these actions negatively affect the overall perception of the game,» according to the NCAA's release.

Shaw told ESPN he will continue to review film if asked, but his role is not to determine if a player was actually hurt — it's to decipher if a team took advantage of an injury timeout to gain an «unmerited advantage.» Shaw said on average, he was asked to review just over one per week.

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