Jeff Lebby 'loves' SEC punishing players for fake injuries

Mississippi State coach Jeff Lebby is a fan of the new rule from the SEC that punishes teams for their players faking injuries. Conference commissioner Greg Sankey released a memo on the revealing the teams will be fined up to $100,000 and the head coach will face a suspension on the third offense.

It’s received mixed reaction from coaches around the league such as Lane Kiffin and Clark Lea. However, Lebby is on the side that believes it will ultimately be a good thing for college football.

“I’m all in favor,” he said. “Love it. It’s come up a ton as we’ve been in the middle of some games. So I love that that’s where it’s going.”

Lebby’s stance on the matter makes sense and teams likely try to employ the fake injury strategy against his up-tempo style offense. Injuries force timeouts on the field that allow the defense a chance to catch its breath and prevent such offenses from gaining too much momentum.

It’s unclear exactly what factors the SEC will use to determine whether a player is faking an injury. It doesn’t seem to be something that can easily be proven one way or the other.

Sankey also said the SEC would send any video of obvious feigned injuries to the National Coordinator. However, the league office won’t necessarily look at every play that could bring about some questions.

Kiffin, who coaches at rival school Ole Miss, was in agreement with Lebby on the new rule.

Earlier in the season, broadcaster Sean McDonough pointed out that one of the Ole Miss went to the ground in an SEC matchup against Kentucky, seemingly faking an injury. However, rules analyst Matt Austin said there was no rule specifically against such a move at the time.

“I’m glad,” Kiffin said. “I know some people say, okay, that sounds weird coming from me. We’re a tempo offense. I’ve been saying this for years, okay, that faking an injury hurts us more than anybody — us and Tennessee — probably more than anybody in America.”