Rich Rodriguez trolls Pittsburgh over number of injury timeouts, questions validity

The usage of injuries to create artificial timeouts became an issue for college football in recent years, forcing rule changes in 2025 to try to prevent faking injuries. Despite that, West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez believes that Pittsburgh was still trying to manipulate stoppages, but he did so while trolling the Mountaineers’ rival.

After the game, Rodriguez laughed at his press conference. He was pretty blunt as he sarcastically shared concern for the Pitt players. At the same time, it was easy to tell he was frustrated by the tactic at the same time.

“You mean when they were laying down, getting hurt?” Rich Rodriguez said. “It’s amazing how many guys got hurt. I mean, I’m really concerned. Do they have anybody left to play next week? Because there was like two or three guys on every other snap. I mean, bad hurt. So, I don’t know if they went back in the game or if they’re in the medical tent right now, but you talk about bad luck.”

There are a few different reasons to fake an injury. Most notably, it disrupts the flow of the offense. For years, it’s been a tactic that most want out of the game, and it seemed to hit a boiling point in 2024. The problem, however, had long since been that it’s impossible to prove a player is faking an injury or cramp.

The new rule to prevent faking injuries makes it so that if a player falls down with an injury after the ball is spotted for play, it costs their team a timeout. If they have no timeouts left, they’ll be hit with a delay of game penalty that costs them five yards. On top of that, they need to be out for at least one down.

“Have you ever seen so much bad luck that they had so many guys get hurt that often? It’s remarkable.” Rodriguez said. “I’m just showing a level of concern for their health and well-being. What the hell was your question anyway?”

The idea behind the rule change was to prevent faking injuries, helping the pace of play. However, Rodriguez feels Pitt found a pretty easy workaround by simply falling down with those injuries before the ball is set. In that way, they’re still able to disrupt the offense.

“Helped us? No. It p*ssed me off. I mean, they got a rule that if he falls down hurt after the ready to play,” Rodriguez said. “But you’re not going to wait for the ready to play. You’re gonna do it immediately. I think that for their health and safety, they should have to sit out the rest of the series or the rest of the quarter. If we’re really concerned about their health and well being, if you get injured, then sit out the rest of the series or the rest of the quarter or maybe even the rest of the half. Probably wouldn’t be as many guys get hurt. Just my opinion, but what do I know?”

In the end, West Virginia was able to win, regardless of any possible faked injuries. It was a thriller too, with the Mountaineers coming back down from two scores in the fourth quarter. They’d go on to win in overtime, moving each team to 2-1 on the season.