SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey would like teams in his conference to stop faking injuries.
Sankey wrote a letter to athletic directors and coaches at all 16 SEC schools on Friday asking them to reduce injury faking. It’s not uncommon for teams to drop a player if an opposing offense rushes in an effort to prevent the defense from substituting, and the practice is no stranger to the offensive side of the ball either. If you’ve watched college football long enough, you’ve seen a game where a player goes down under circumstances that are a little suspicious.
Greg Sankey sent a memo to SEC coaches and ADs directing them to stop ordering players to fake injuries and instituting sanctions that include, on a third offense, a coaching suspension, according to a copy obtained by @YahooSports.
“Play football and stop pretending nonsense about injuries,” he writes. pic.twitter.com/1ShgBeve9V
—Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) November 1, 2024
Sankey’s letter ends with the phrase “play football and stop the nonsense about fake injuries.” In it, it says that the SEC will send a video to the National Coordinator of Officials if “a circumstance warrants it” regarding a faked injury and that teams will be penalized. if a player is found to be faking an injury to cause a stoppage.
The sanctions are a $50,000 fine and a public reprimand for the head coach for the first false injury, a $100,000 fine and a reprimand for the second false injury, and a third finding “will result in the suspension of the head coach for the next team contest. “
“In the future, I will consider a feigned injury to have been determined when the National Coordinator indicates that it is more likely that a feigned injury occurred, that a player attempted to fake an injury, or any other general statement by the National Coordinator. that ‘the action of a feigned injury can never be absolutely verified by video, and I cannot say with absolute certainty whether the player was actually injured…’ a feigned injury will be deemed to have occurred unless the National Coordinator accepts clear medical information that establishes the cause The player had to interrupt the game for a timeout and modifies the finding of feigned injury in a timely manner.”
That paragraph is followed by an underlined sentence that says “your team must be prepared to compete fairly according to the rules of the game.”
With five weeks left in the season, there’s a good chance a conference coach will receive a reprimand from the league before the end of the regular season. It will be fascinating to see which team gets punished first.
