SEC coaches talk players faking injuries to slow tempo
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Players going down with an “injury” when the other team is running a high-tempo offense is an issue plaguing college football games across the nation.
For starters, it should be considered cheating. Pretending to be injured to stop play allows the team to slow down the opponent’s momentum without being forced to a call timeout. That’s a reason you have timeouts, right? To stop the game and regroup.
But since there’s no consequences to doing it, you’re seeing players mysteriously go down with an injury, usually a “cramp,” in almost every college football game you watch.
SEC head coaches Nick Saban, Jimbo Fisher and Lane Kiffin were all asked about what can be done to put an end to this while on this week’s SEC coaches teleconference.
Here’s what the head coaches had to say on the matter.
Alabama head coach Nick Saban:
Saban was asked if he is able to think of a resolution to the issue.”Not really,” he said.
“It really slows the game down, so it’s not a good thing for the game. It’s not something that we’ve ever done here.
“When a team goes fast, which everybody has the right to go fast, and you go on long drives .. players get tired. When players get tired, they’re more susceptible to getting injured. You don’t have enough timeouts to call time out, so I understand why some people do it. We’ve not done it here. It does impact the pace of play. I don’t have a solution to it.
“There’s a lot of good people out there that are above my pay grade, I probably shouldn’t even be trying to answer this question.”
Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher:
Fisher focused on what could go wrong if you do start giving penalties or punishments to teams that use this tactic. He basically said that if you’re going to penalize teams for this, you better be sure that the player was actually faking the injury.
“I think there’s two things that go on — one .. injuries are going to occur. When do you get hurt? When you’re tired, you’re out of shape — that’s when you get hit bad, things happen. And to sit there and say somebody is lying on an injury is a very tough thing to say. Especially when you call wolf one time and the guy’s really hurt,” said Fisher.
“At the same time, I understand the complaint. I understand the process of which people do it. We do not do it here, we do not coach it here, I do not allow it here. .. I think it’s wrong.”
Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin:
Kiffin was not really playing around. He provided a resolution to the issue, saying that players should be forced to sit out a certain number of players or that the SEC should review the incident after the game and hand out fines if it deems the player was in fact faking.
“It’s been talked about for years. .. I said, ‘Well, I can tell you I don’t think you’re going to really stop that until you make it the guy has to stay out for so many plays.’ There’s gotta be a penalty to it. If you really want to change it, let the conference review it — look at the film,” stated Kiffin. “If they deem it to be an obvious faking of an injury, then there’s a penalty .. a fine. Then, I promise you it would never happen anywhere.”
