Greg Sankey issues warning to SEC coaches about faking injuries, including penalty, suspensions

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey sent a memo to the league’s coaches and athletics directors issuing a warning about faking injuries, Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger reported. It also included penalties as well as possible coach suspensions.

The penalties increase for each occurrence of fake injuries, as determined by the National Coordinator for Football Officiating, Sankey wrote. The head coach would receive a public reprimand and the school would be assessed a $50,000 penalty, and that number increases to $100,000 on the second instance. If it happens a third time, the head coach will face a suspension for the next game, as well any other staffers involved.

“When defending against a ‘hurry up’ offense, you are to use the allocated team time-outs if you need to stop play, or you may allow the play to continue with the personnel and defensive play call in place,” the memo states. “When on offense, if the play clock is running out, you are to use a team time-out or accept the delay of game penalty. Creating injury time-outs in these circumstances is not acceptable and is disrespectful to the game of college football.”

Greg Sankey sent a memo to SEC coaches & ADs ordering them to stop directing players to feign injuries & instituting penalties that include, on a 3rd offense, a coach suspension, per a copy obtained by @YahooSports.

"Play football & stop the feigned injury nonsense," he writes. pic.twitter.com/1ShgBeve9V

— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) November 1, 2024

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. But at the end of the message, he had a stern message for the SEC’s member schools.

“As of this date, it is presumed that every member of your football program – coaches, staff, student-athletes, medical staff, and all others – is aware of and understands this policy,” Sankey said. “Play football and stop the feigned injury nonsense.”

More on the SEC’s issues with fake injuries

Fake injuries have become a big topic of conversation around college football this year, particularly in the SEC. There have been multiple instances of game announcers calling out players for appearing to feign injury, most recently when Alabama took on Tennessee. ABC commentators Sean McDonough and Greg McElroy called out a Crimson Tide player for going to the ground amid a substitution controversy.

Ole Miss has also been at the center of the fake-injury issues. In late September, McDonough pointed out one of the Rebels went to the ground in an SEC matchup against Kentucky, but rules analyst Matt Austin said there was no rule specifically against such a move.

“There’s actually nothing in the rulebook that says you cannot do that,” Austin said on the broadcast. “There is very strong wording about being unethical to fake an injury at anytime during the game. I know the rules-makers have talked about it several times, but as of right now, there’s nothing you in the book can do about it.”

The instances led to calls for a specific rule against fake injuries. Former Alabama coach Nick Saban was among the crowd calling for that move, saying penalties could help prevent players from going to the ground without actually being hurt.

“If you get injured, stay down, stay down, don’t get up, because, you know, we can’t substitute fast enough, right,” Saban said. “All right. So now people are taking advantage of this rule, but I think until there’s some penalty for doing it. And I know it’s a very sensitive subject for an official to make a determination about, is a player injured or not, but there should be a flop rule. 

“And if a guy actually gets up, runs down, and then right before the play starts, he flops, maybe it should be a charged time out, you know, for that team, because it’s pretty obvious some of these situations where guys are flopping and they’re not injured.”