Greg Sankey: play football and stop the feigned injury nonsense

The rise of faking injuries in college football to force clock stoppages and, in particular, to slow down no-huddle offenses, has been a hot-button topic this season. On Friday, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey weighed in, and sent a strongly worded memo to SEC head coaches and athletic directors, telling them under no uncertain terms that the practice should stop immediately.

Sankey called the practice "disrespectful to the game of college football."

"When defending against hurry up offense, you are to use the allocated team time-outs if you need to stop play, or you may allow the play to continue with the personnel and play call in place," Sankey said in the memo. "When on offense, if the play clock is running out, you are to use a team time-out or accept the delay of game penalty. Creating injury time-outs is not acceptable and is disrespectful to the game of college football."

Sankey also outlined penalties for schools and coaches if the National Coordinator for Football Officiating has deemed a feigned injury to have occurred.

A first offense would mean a public reprimand for the head coach and a $50,000 fine for the school. A second offense would be another public reprimand and a $100,000 fine. A third offense would lead to the head coach being suspended for the next game.

Sankey is the first person in a position of power in college football to issue guidelines and potential punishments for faking injuries. The situation has gotten out of control, but if you ask most fans of SEC football, there are plenty of bigger issues regarding officiating in the conference.

Every week in almost every single conference game, there are missed or blown calls that ultimately have an impact on the game. If we can drop the hammer on coaches for telling their players to fake an injury, then maybe we should be willing to drop the hammer on incompetent officiating, too.