Tennessee football should benefit big from reported NCAA rules committee priority

A blatant exploitation of one loophole this past year looks like it’s about to be addressed, and that should help Tennessee football in a huge way given the system they run. In fact, don’t be surprised if Josh Heupel’s offense becomes the top offense in the nation easily with the change.

Longtime respected SEC official Steve Shaw, who is the national director of officials, said recently that the issue of faking injuries will be a priority of the NCAA Rules committee this offseason. UT, which runs a tempo-based offense, was hurt by that loophole last year.

Figuring out a way to mitigate that issue appears to be the trick, though, and Shaw basically opened up possible solutions to the public. Nicole Auerbach of The Athletic reported on what Shaw was saying Monday.

Nobody screamed more for this issue to be addressed than Tennessee football fans. It was very apparent against the Ole Miss Rebels, when Lane Kiffin brazenly exploited the loophole and continued to do it all year to the point of laughing about it.

If this rule is updated, though, the Vols would benefit in a huge way. Ironically, so would Ole Miss. These two teams had the two most up-tempo offenses when they met in October. At the time, Ole Miss averaged 2.89 plays per minute while UT averaged 2.87 plays per minute.

However, by the end of the year, the tempo dramatically increased for the Vols even more, and they finished averaging over three plays per minute. That’s insane tempo, and one of the ways to neutralize it was for other players to go down.

If the NCAA takes that out of the game or at least mitigates it, then yes, Tennessee football will benefit the most. As for how to address the issue, well, honestly, it’s probably not too hard, and it’ll keep players from being punished if they actually are hurt.

Just make players sit out an entire drive if they stop the game due to injury. Heck, this could even coincide with player safety, as they league could claim that if a player gets hurt, then for his own good, he shouldn’t be allowed to enter the rest of the drive.

In order to make it specifically about safety, maybe rather than a drive, set a time limit. Another way to do it is to say the player must sit out for a set number of plays on defense, so if he goes down at the end of one drive he’s got to miss enough of the other.

There are plenty of ways to address this, but the fact that they are should only help Tennessee football going forward. Heupel’s tempo-based offense was why Danny White hired him, and it’s been taking the SEC by storm ever since his days with the Missouri Tigers. Nick Saban may not like this new rule, but it’s definitely going to benefit the Vols.