Fake injuries have taken the college football world by storm the past few years as Tennessee football's offense has shown to be a cheat code at times with its up-tempo, explosive play style.
Teams have started telling players to go down with an injury after the ball is spotted to force an injury timeout to slow down Tennessee's offense and offenses like the Vols.
Now, if teams choose to do this, they will be charged a timeout, or if they are out of timeouts, they will be charged a five-yard delay of game penalty, according to the new NCAA rule.
"Under the new rule, if medical personnel enter the field to evaluate an injured player after the ball is spotted by the officiating crew for the next play, that player's team will be charged a timeout. If the team does not have any timeouts remaining, a 5-yard delay-of-game penalty will be assessed.
"The injury timeout proposal was made by the NCAA Football Rules Committee after many in the college football community raised concerns about strategies in which players fake an injury to stop the opposition's momentum or to avoid using an allotted timeout."
This rule should all but end the fake injuries that conveniently come as Tennessee's offense is getting set or about to snap the ball, catching the defense in a bad spot.
It will be interesting to see if teams will still try to slow down up-tempo offenses with the same or other strategies and try to cheat the system or if the Vols and others will be able to play free and not have to worry about beating opponents' fake injuries.