It's a problem that has been growing in college sports in recent years. We're of course talking about players faking injuries late in games to try and save time. This is something Tennessee Volunteers fans have seen during contests and they're sick of it. Well, they're not the only ones.
On Friday, in stunning fashion, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey decided to send a warning to head coaches and athletic directors: stop having your players fake injuries, or there will be consequences for those actions.
According to Yahoo Sports' Ross Dellenger, programs will be fined for a first and second offense moving forward. However, that's not all. Should a third violation be committed, a head coach will be facing a suspension. Goodness:
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.
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) November 1, 2024
"Play football & stop the feigned injury nonsense," he writes. pic.twitter.com/1ShgBeve9V
Josh Heupel and other SEC coaches are facing a suspension over players faking injuries
This is a Friday news dump if we've ever seen one. At the same time, it shows that Sankey and the SEC mean business. Far too many times in college football we have seen a healthy player basically throw themselves on the ground for no reason to stop the clock.
Last month, legendary head coach Nick Saban called for a flop rule to be implemented to prevent people from doing this. Teams will have players fake injuries when they're out of timeouts to stop the clock, or to prevent an offense from continuing to march down the field on them.
It has become a joke and quite disrespectful to the game if you ask us. A change needs to be made and the hope is that these new rules being brought on by the SEC will prevent squads from pulling off this kind of a decision moving forward.
Can you imagine what will happen if a team gets a third strike and a head coach earns a one-game suspension because of it? People would lose their minds, especially if Heupel ends up being the one who is penalized. We'll see if other schools take this news seriously, but the SEC has sent quite the statement here.