We can be honest about the state of faking injuries in college football. It is absolutely out of control.
Never was this more clear than during Ole Miss’ Week 5 loss to Kentucky. Fans tuned into the game watched running back Matt Jones go from standing up straight ready for the next play to looking like he got hit by an invisible train after his coaches seemingly told him to go down.
There’s flopping and then there’s flopping and this was certainly the latter. That might be the most egregious example, but you don’t have to look too hard in any college game to see players blatantly faking injuries to slow down the pace of the game and allow for substitutions.
As long as there’s no rule against it, there’s no reason for teams to stop exploiting the loophole.
Well, count former Alabama coach Nick Saban among those ready to change the status quo. During Saturday’s broadcast of College GameDay live from Eugene, Oregon, Saban addressed the troubling amount of faked injuries across the sport and came up with a clear solution: it’s time for some penalties.
Nick Saban sounds off on the fake injury epidemic:
“This is the integrity of the game. And there’s no player that flops in a game that doesn’t get a signal from the coach to do it — to slow the game down.” pic.twitter.com/aMUtlwqlgf
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 12, 2024
Saban knows the modern game as well as any college coach. If he’s saying “no player that flops in a game” does it without a coach’s signal, it’s hard to disagree.
Which is why Saban’s solutions actually sound pretty practical. Rather than dock a team 10 yards or a down, Saban suggested the team should immediately lose a timeout.
Now, we can argue for days whether most college coaches even know how to use their timeouts properly, but removing the ability to call one would instantly get every team’s attention.
There would almost certainly have to be some clear parameters here. The last thing you want is a referee making a judgement call on whether or not someone is faking an injury. But in egregious cases like Matt Jones’ there is no reason to continue letting teams get away with this.
It’s time to bring down the hammer on the coaches who encourage it.
