COLLEGE football chiefs have unveiled a drastic rule change to combat teams faking injuries.
The NCAA are fed up with players pretending to be hurt so they can break up the opposition’s momentum or try to avoid a timeout.
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Now a major amendment has been made, starting from the launch of 2025-26.
If medics come on to assess an ‘injured’ player – after the ball is spotted by officials – then that player’s team will be charged a timeout.
And it gets even worse for that side if they have no timeouts left.
In such cases, a five-yard penalty for delaying the game will be looked at.
The new rule was proposed by the NCAA Football Rules Committee earlier in the off-season.
It followed worries around the college football world about poor sportsmanship.
At the moment, teams face a daunting obstacle if they feel opponents have faked an injury.
They need to send in videos of the incidents they believe are suspicious.
NCAA national coordinator of officials Steve Shaw would then investigate.
And if he reckons the injury WAS faked, he would tell the offending team’s conference.
The NCAA have also agreed another significant alteration.
Teams will get just one timeout from the third overtime until there’s a winner.
The aim is once more to improve the flow of the game – in this case, to keep things moving in overtime.
The change will be particularly important when each team has to alternate running two-point plays, starting with the third overtime.
Until now, teams have had only one timeout in each overtime period.
