SEC clarifies rule to combat players faking injuries ahead of Week 1

The NCAA previously announced a handful of new rule changes for the 2025 season. The one that will undoubtedly get the most attention is a rule attempting to curb teams from faking injuries.

Before the 2025 season kicks off for the Southeastern Conference, the league is reminding everyone about that rule. The SEC was at the center of the debate around the rule thanks to a handful of incidents in recent years.

The NCAA has already enacted the rule for some Week 0 games. So here it is in its entirety, from the SEC:

“To combat the practice of feigning injuries, the rules committee passed a rule that if a player presents as injured after the ball is spotted by officials, that team will be charged a Team Timeout or a delay penalty if all timeouts have been used. That player must remain out of the game for at least one down, even if that team is granted a team timeout and may not return to the game until receiving approval of professional medical personnel designated by their institution.”

The reasoning for the rule change now is to provide an immediate in-game mechanism that can potentially curtail teams from faking injuries. In the past, teams were required to send video of questionable injury stoppages to be reviewed by NCAA national coordinator of officials, Steve Shaw, who would then contact the offending team’s conference if it was clear the injury was a ruse.

At the start of November, the SEC announced it would begin implementing punishments for faking injuries. Ole Miss was one team that had been heavily scrutinized over the practice, though proving intent has always been tricky.

Still, coach Lane Kiffin was surprisingly in favor of the new rule, which the SEC issued a reminder of on Thursday. He opened up this spring.

“I’m glad,” Kiffin said. “I know some people say, okay, that sounds weird coming from me. We’re a tempo offense. I’ve been saying this for years, okay, that faking an injury hurts us more than anybody — us and Tennessee — probably more than anybody in America.”

During the 2024 season, broadcaster Sean McDonough pointed out that one of the Ole Miss players went to the ground in an SEC matchup against Kentucky, seemingly the perfect example of faking injuries. However, rules analyst Matt Austin said there was no rule specifically against such a move at the time.

Now, there’s a concrete penalty for faking injuries. It’ll be interesting to see how effective it is in curbing the practice.

On3’s Nick Kosko also contributed to this report.