Unfortunately, Florida Gators fans have seen far too often how many times teams are faking injuries on the gridiron to save time/force the officials to stop a contest because they're out of timeouts. Indeed, teams faking injuries has been a consistent issue for college football.
Well, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has had just about enough. In a Friday news dump, it has been reported by Ross Dellenger that the SEC will now be fining programs if players take a dive on the field in a showdown.
However, should a third violation be committed, things will be taken one step further. Per the statement Delleger got his hands on, Sankey informed universities that coaches could face a suspension over their guys faking injuries. If this doesn't raise some eyebrows, we don't know what will:
Greg Sankey sent a memo to SEC coaches & ADs ordering them to stop directing players to feign injuries & instituting penalties that include, on a 3rd offense, a coach suspension, per a copy obtained by @YahooSports.
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) November 1, 2024
"Play football & stop the feigned injury nonsense," he writes. pic.twitter.com/1ShgBeve9V
Billy Napier, SEC coaches facing suspension over players faking injuries
This is a big-time statement from Sankey and one that loads of football supporters are quite happy about. The conference is taking this kind of thing seriously, which is why they've decided to do everything possible to prevent it from happening in the future.
The hope is that every single team in the SEC will see this message from Sankey and inform their players that unless they're actually hurt, they can never fake an injury. There will be consequences in place that no one will want to face.
Can you imagine if Florida commits three violations from this new policy and Billy Napier has to sit out a game due to a suspension? Gators fans everywhere would be livid. Let's go ahead and hope things never get to that point.