How should officials deal with fake injuries?
The first weekend of games brought at least two potential uses of the "fake injury" tactic, whereby a player gets directions from the sideline to intentionally slow down the opposing offense. The first was the UGA v. Clemson. The evidence is pretty clear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gKCBKwgkNE&feature=youtu.be. The second was the Cal v. Northwestern game, which was obvious to anyone who watched it. Northwestern went down with at least 7-8 "injuries," almost all of which coincided with Cal first downs.
With the increasing use of uptempo spread concepts, fake injuries are becoming more common. The question is, how can officials stop this? Is there really any way to reliably sniff out this kind of impropriety? I'm curious to know what people think about this.
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:05 AM ^
There needs to be some policy instituted. What to do I'm not totally sure, but coaching staffs need to be punished for this. Not only is it bad for the competitiveness of the game, but also for hte perception of player injuries. Fans are going to begin second guessing every injury, which is never a good thing
September 2nd, 2013 at 9:05 AM ^
Your second point is, to me, the more important one. I can remember watching Oregon games where the crowd immediately started booing every single time an opposing player went to the turf because they assumed that the player was faking the injury at the behest of his coaches. News flash Oregon fans: sometimes kids DO get injured in football games. When that happens, it just makes that fanbase look awful.
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:10 AM ^
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:11 AM ^
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:35 AM ^
it's a smartphone, isn't it.
September 2nd, 2013 at 7:13 AM ^
stupid smartphone = phone ???
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:45 AM ^
The problem I see with that is you have a lot of depth at some spots. For example if Michigan had Cam Gordon flop, we could just pop in Beyer under Gordon could come in, and once Ryan is healthy we'd be three deep there. Same with the DTs, heck you rotate them out for a series anyways so they can get a break, so just have them flop when break time comes around. I'd imagine Alabama or someone with an even better depth chart can go up to 4 deep at some spots.
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:21 AM ^
September 2nd, 2013 at 9:19 AM ^
Any change you make also affects the offense. Imagine Gardner going down for a play. Just a boo boo on a first down play. Now you're saying the next set of downs has to be played by Shane Morris. Granted, it's not a terrible situation...but what if Morris was Bellomy? You've effectively ended a drive by a rule there. Same thing can happen on defense. Your star corner gets injured, you have to put an inexperienced freshman in his place for 4 downs. They target him. Boom. Game chsanged.
I'm not sure there is a solution to this problem, honestly. Though of all potential solutions, yours would have the least potential negative ramifications.
September 2nd, 2013 at 10:46 AM ^
It should definitely be based on some discretion by the refs; a guy clearly hit by a DE when he throws is one thing early in a game, but what we saw at NW and Georgia were clearly stalling tactics. Obviously you wouldn't stall as much on offense except, I guess, to nab extra timeouts, but again that is where some human element should come in. Hockey does it with the flopping rule, and while it isn't perfect, I've definitely noticed a downturn in the number of intentional dives.
September 3rd, 2013 at 11:00 AM ^
It is easier to identify a hockey player enhancing a hit or fall. The referee (linesman) actually observes the act and makes a judgment. A fake injury to stop the clock is not very common in hockey; it is to cause a penalty on the other team. The football injury is very different. The referee seldom observes the injury, just the player on the field after the whistle. It is hard, if not impossible, to judge the validity of any injury in that situation.
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:29 AM ^
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:42 PM ^
The problem with requiring an extended time out (whether four plays, the rest of the series, or the rest of the quarter) for injured players is that those bent on finding every advantage the rules allowed would just substitute a third stringer (at a position with a lot of depth), and have him fake the injury. It could become like basketball where coaches insert bench warmers to deliberately foul. And this would punish the honest players and coaches.
September 2nd, 2013 at 1:30 PM ^
And it could further encourage headhunting. Even if you don't knock the guy out of the game for good, if you leave him smarting on the ground for just an instant, presto - he's done for the drive. I don't think we want that.
I think the only thing that can really be done is for the officials - if they're really convinced it's fake - to start issuing unsportsmanlike conduct penalties on the opposing coach.
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:15 AM ^
It's hilarious to me when a spread team does this to another spread team. I've always respected Fitzgerald but incidents like this and his act at Michigan last year are making me question that a little.
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:31 AM ^
I think Fitz either needs to win his division at the least in the next few years or he is going to have a meltdown. He's a competitive guy and it looks like he's not happy with having Northwestern in the top 4 for the conference (which is really quite an achievement). It seems like he wants to replicate Stanford or bust, and his bust might be an epic meltdown when the stress gets him.
September 2nd, 2013 at 2:21 AM ^
from the division shift next year. NW should fare better with "just" Nebraska and UW to contend for a division. On a side note - it appears the Kyle Prater is a non-factor for NW again this year. I watched nearly half of that game and didn't hear his name called or see his name on a jersey on the field. Anyone know what's up with that?
September 2nd, 2013 at 7:39 AM ^
He's apparently injured. I think he must have some kind of chronic injury in his knees or ankles, because he's never been able to stay on the field at NU or USC.
September 2nd, 2013 at 9:55 AM ^
September 3rd, 2013 at 8:59 AM ^
...what you did there!
September 2nd, 2013 at 11:07 AM ^
I agree to an extent, but the bigger issue is that he still hasn't been able to field anything close to a competent defense. The offense scores points by design, but for a guy who was an AA linebacker his defenses have been, at best, meh since he took over. Other teams with similar academic profiles field better units, and he's really done little to alter his approach to offset for any talent deficiencies.
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:59 PM ^
Starting to really dislike Fitzgerald.
Was at the Berkeley game on Saturday... it was some real amateur league shit, when CAL would start to get some offensive momentum, a NW defender would go down... only to spring up and walk off 3 minutes later, surrounded by trainers. To the CAL fans credit, they caught on right away, started to boo every time a NW defendender went down... so strange, never witnessed something like that before.
Add that to Fitzgerald's obnoxious smiling jackass antics at the Michigan game last year, and his bitch move to try and get O'Brien penalized at the PSU game last year.
I hope we beat their ass this year.
September 2nd, 2013 at 1:11 PM ^
edit: oops.
September 2nd, 2013 at 1:10 PM ^
those same cal fans weren't so vocal when their team was doing the same thing against oregon.
September 2nd, 2013 at 1:35 PM ^
That's probably why they recognized it so quickly.
September 2nd, 2013 at 2:06 PM ^
But that was a Tedford move... can't put Sunny Dykes (sp?) in the same category... but yeah, i guess the CAL fans can't talk much in this case.
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:23 AM ^
because what you really don't want to do, is ignore a legitimate injury.
A solution could be 15 yd unsportmanlike conduct if caught, but how do you really catch a team unless you have a medical doctor analyze each player upon injury?
Whats really unfortunate is that people are crying wolf on injuries and someone with an actual injury isnt going to get the immediate care they may need since teams are now desensitizing everyone to injuries
In short, I have no solution
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:26 AM ^
First I think it cuts both ways. For example the head of the NFL refs made it clear to Kelly won't be able to dictate the speed of the game to the refs like he did in college. If one guy is actually pressuring the refs into doing things at an abnormal pace, flopping to counter becomes a bit more understandable. One guy is messing with the refs to set tempo, another guy is just messing with player injuries. The big difference is we are fans always see the fake injury, whereas you don't always see the coach putting pressure on the ref.
The big problem is any kind of immediate subjective penalty will have a chilling effect on the willingess of players to indicate they are injured and want to be pulled out. For the minor stuff they'll fear getting their team in trouble and stay in, risking further injury. So I would definitely be against any kind of immediate penalty to the player (longer sit out time) or flag against the team. Rather I'd say tape should be reviewed (along with perhaps the actual medical status of the player) and practice hours or recruit contact hours reduced based on the flops recorded.
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:31 AM ^
I wonder if officials could document all injuries and then make inquiries of the training staff the next day to confirm them. It's probably a terrible idea given the huge bias and pressure that team training staffs would face, but it's all I've got.
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:35 AM ^
Perhaps that is merely one of the levels. First level is nothing is said about your injuries, the second level is requests for information, and level three is you get yourself a NCAA assigned doctor who calls bullshit on all the flopping. You move from the second level to third level if you end up submitting lots of shady looking paperwork. Of course that would require the NCAA enforcement guys to have some teeth, so that won't ever happen.
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:50 PM ^
First, it will never come to this. But if it ever did, you would either see different injuries that can't be reliably detected by testing, or, by mid-season, just about every player does have a real, perhaps minor, nagging injury. It would'nt be hard to show bruises, inflamed tissue, sprains. And that's npt tp mention the kind of in-game issues, like dehydration, that can occur that will not show up in some test 24 or 48 hours later.
September 2nd, 2013 at 9:45 AM ^
There also needs to be a mechanism to stop repeated use of this tactic in game. I would start by charging a TO for the first offense, move on to an unsportsmanlike like penalty (15 yards) for the second offense, and something more drastic for the third offense.
Maybe I dislike this tactic more than others. My idea would be to inflict the injury a player is faking on the head coach. Draconian? Maybe, but positioning an official with a large wooden mallet on each sideline to administer concussions to the likes of Dantonio and Bielema when their players fake a head injury is oddly appealing.
September 2nd, 2013 at 10:23 AM ^
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:55 PM ^
This will never fly. So a player takes a fall--says he twisted an ankle--and somebody is going to review film (because we know they always get everything right) and say no, he didn't? How about a cramp? Is somebody going to look at film and say, "no, it doesn't look like a cramp to me."
September 2nd, 2013 at 3:00 PM ^
The NFL does it. I know they punish the players, but I'm not sure about the coaches. It's definitely not impossible, though there would obviously be challenges.
September 2nd, 2013 at 11:13 AM ^
I agree with your concerns, but the problem I see with the post-game punishment is that it probably won't really deter most teams from doing it. Coaches live in the moment, and if I'm, say, Georgia I'd take a disruption against Clemson that gives me a chance to win today and deal with having less practice time for North Texas or something later on down the line. You almost have to punish them during the game to at least make the crime feel real and mitigate any advantage the bad behavior bestows upon the team during the game. Because Clemson or Cal will only suffer from the actions of the other team without any compensating benefits.
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:29 AM ^
Cleat to grion on the prior play
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:32 AM ^
And he suddenly fell to the ground after looking at the sideline 8 seconds later? Come on now.
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:37 AM ^
Your right. The coaches were clearly paying close attention, and signaled the one and only player who was kicked in the grior to fake an injury.
Obviously the player didn't initially decide to play through it, and then realise that he was going to be unable to go the next play.
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:48 AM ^
Watch the video. He's walking around, looks to the sideline, and then hobbles to the ground. He's not giving the slightest attention to his groin. I think you're being naive.
September 2nd, 2013 at 7:43 AM ^
A lot of times, coaches will signal players that are up, but obviously hurt in some way, to go down so that the next play doesn't go off with a significantly compromised player. I'm not saying that's what happened here but that guy did clearly catch one in the junk.
September 2nd, 2013 at 1:08 AM ^
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:31 AM ^
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:45 AM ^
so I think the only way you can do something is like what is said above: If a coach has a grievance, allow the conference and/or NCAA to review tape and maybe layout a penalty to a team if they can somehow find some sort of correlation between a play coming in from the coaches and an injury. Otherwise, you really can't do much
September 2nd, 2013 at 1:23 AM ^
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:34 AM ^
September 2nd, 2013 at 10:28 PM ^
When?
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:47 AM ^
Not much you can do immediately, but it would it would be a good idea for NCAA and Conference officials to have the ability to review tapes and medical records and be able make decisions based on that... From there they should have the ability to fine schools and suspend players accordingly. The punishment may seem a little harsh, but they need to let the players and coaches know that this won't be tolerated in the game. Then again, the NCAA hasn't taken anything seriously in a while now, so my theory is probably a longshot
September 2nd, 2013 at 1:10 AM ^
September 2nd, 2013 at 1:30 AM ^