On Friday, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey delivered a message to head football coaches and league athletic directors detailing the consequences for players who continue to fabricate ailments during games.
In the message, Sankey wrote, As plainly as it can be stated: Stop any and all activity related to faking injuries to create time-outs, a copy of which ESPN collected. In closing, he wrote, Play football and stop the feigned injury nonsense.
In recent years, coaches have increasingly accused opposition teams and coaches of fabricating ailments in order to sabotage offenses, particularly up-tempo ones that don’t huddle much. This season, broadcasters have highlighted multiple clear instances where athletes have collapsed to the ground close to the sideline, claiming to be injured just as the opposing offense was about to snap the ball.
The SEC must review every play in which a fictitious injury may have occurred. The national coordinator of football officiating, Steve Shaw, will decide what qualifies as a fake injury. These rules will include Shaw stating that a feigned injury has occurred, that it is more likely than not that a feigned injury has occurred, that a player attempted to feign an injury, or any other general statement from Shaw establishing the probability of a feigned injury, according to Sankey’s memo.
Whether on defense or offense, Sankey stated that establishing injury timeouts is not acceptable and is disrespectful to the game of football.
According to Sankey’s memo, a head coach faces a public censure and a $50,000 fine for the first offense, a second censure and a $100,000 fine for the second offense, and a third censure and suspension from the coach’s program’s next game for the third offense.
The same sanctions, which include monetary fines and suspension, will be applied to any employee who is discovered to have encouraged or signaled a player to pretend to be injured. A player may also receive a public censure if they are cited for fabricating an injury.
At the Oklahoma-Texas game a few weeks ago, Sankey expressed his concern to reporters about the increasing claims of injury fabrication.
If somebody’s injured, we need to take that seriously, Sankey stated. “But creating the questions — and I mean this all across the country — needs to stop.