SEC commissioner Greg Sankey wants changes to rules around faking injuries

DALLAS — SEC commissioner Greg Sankey believes college football needs to adapt its rules to curb the faking of injuries during games. 

“Creating the question [of whether a player is injured or faking] — and I mean this all across the country — needs to stop,” Sankey said during halftime of Saturday’s Oklahoma–Texas game. The Ole Miss program put out a statement Friday night suggesting the Rebels have been questioned about whether players have faked injuries in recent weeks.

“Feigned injuries have become a notable topic in college football, we realize our program has been part of that discussion,” the statement said. “We have been in communication with the National Coordinator for Football Officiating and provided relevant medical information for his review to answer questions about recent injuries. We have also updated the SEC office, and our head coach will communicate with our coaches and players to ensure we conduct ourselves properly and are compliant in this manner.”

The amount of blatant fake injuries from Ole Miss today is crazy. And it always just so happens to occur after Kentucky makes a big play or gains momentum. pic.twitter.com/RfPxnNJKe9

— Joshua Wisel (@jwwx225) September 28, 2024

Sankey would like to see the resolution of such situations move from the week after the game to during the game. Under the current system, if an injury is determined to have been faked to stop the clock, the team that faked the injury can be admonished after the fact, but there is no remedy for the affected opponent. “I think the rules have to change,” Sankey said. “This notion of postgame evaluations didn’t work when targeting was put into place. And that changed so they can make a decision within the game.”

In 2013, the targeting rule was adapted to include an automatic ejection. In 2019, the rules were changed so all targeting calls would receive an automatic video review — with the video required to confirm the call rather to disprove a call initially assumed to be correct — to determine whether the player actually committed the foul. Sankey said the faking injury issue isn’t as simple as a video review, though.

The toughest part about enforcing the existing rules — and any potential changes — is that officials want to ensure players who actually are injured are handled with the utmost care. “The rules are pretty clear about that,” Sankey said. “You’re going to honor what is evaluated as an injury.”

Sankey would like a national discussion about potential solutions. 

It’s easy to suggest that forcing a player who drops because of an injury — real or fake — would have to sit out the next four plays. Because teams often inexplicably have some of their best players feign injuries to stop the clock, such a change probably would end the practice. But holding previously injured players out for multiple plays would be difficult for officials who would have to keep track of certain players on the sideline.

Another potential solution is to dock a team a timeout if it is found to have faked an injury. But that would require an on-field determination of guilt or innocence, and that isn’t easy to get in real time because it requires input from a team’s medical staff.

A potential change that would eliminate the judgement call aspect is to require an injured player to sit out for a period of time or plays but allow the coach to “buy back” that player’s eligibility with a timeout. That would force the coach to decide whether the player’s availability or the clock stoppage is more important.

Sankey, along with his fellow commissioners, is open to other ideas. But expect plenty of discussion of this topic this offseason.