Hey, You Want to Fake Injuries?

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Happy Friday, folks.

For a week with no actual football, this week sure had some news.

I am saddened to once again start a newsletter off on such a somber note, but college football lost a true legend this week. Mike Leach, head coach of the Mississippi State Bulldogs, died after complications relating to a heart attack. He was truly a pioneer for the sport, not even playing college football and instead becoming a lawyer. After passing the bar, he realized his passions were in passing the football where he fathered the innovative "Air Raid" offense which has come to dominate the pass-happy sport today. As brilliant as he was on the gridiron, though, it was his commitment to being himself that made him shine in a sport populated by "coach speak."

Whether it was giving strangers advice on marriage, writing a book about Geronimo and war strategy, or going out of his way to boost the career of aspiring student journalists, Leach left a mark on anyone who had the pleasure of interacting with him. Perhaps no article better sums his legacy up than the one linked, though you could truly spend days going deeper down the rabbit hole that is Leach's train of thoughts.

Mississippi State has since promoted DC Zach Arnett to fill the head spot as they look to keep a sense of stability around the program. The two sides have agreed to a four-year deal worth an average $3 million per year.

RIP Pirate.

There's a new President of the NCAA, and the man filling the job has quite a bit of leadership experience. The organization tagged Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker as its next head honcho beginning after his second term in Boston comes to an end in January. Baker is taking over for Mark Emmert who has held the position for more than a decade. A couple of things have changed in Mark's time in office, and Baker will have quite a few issues to sort through, beginning with NIL, the transfer portal, and now even (spoiler) potential classifications on student athletes as employees.

There is optimism that Baker's experience in politics will provide him with political connections that will be useful to address these mentioned issues from a legislative lens. Personally, if you thought the NCAA handling this mess was bad, my faith in the House of Reps📉

I mentioned a few weeks ago that UCLA's move to the Big Ten alongside big bro USC was in jeopardy as the UC Board of Regents sought to potentially block it. On Wednesday, they held their final vote, and just as in improv, the answer was "Yes and."

In addition to the increased financial commitment to resources for UCLA student athletes resulting from the increased travel toll, an amount in total of roughly $12 million, the school will actually also be required to pay sister school UC-Berkeley an annual subsidy for value-lost as a result of the departure of the more valuable Bruins. This subsidy is expected to be in the range of $2-$10 million per year to offset the decreased Pac-12 payout to member schools now that the conference's media value has taken a Los Angeles-shaped hit.

Across town, it seems that football players are finally getting off their butts and finding jobs. Well, actually they might just keep getting up for 5am practices but with a new title. The Los Angeles region branch of the National Labor Relations Board released a statement late last night that it found merit in unfair labor claims from USC football and basketball players against the NCAA and Pac-12 conferences.

How is this possible? They've classified the athletes as employees of both the conference and the league.

This is pretty monumental and will undoubtedly lead to various lawsuits, eventually establishing a clear designation for players and workplace rights, such as that to unionize, going forward. It's still early, but expect some significant developments over the coming months.

Maryland passed legislation allowing for high school athletes to sign NIL deals, making the Old Line State the 24th to do so. However, the home of the best crab cakes in the world included a few notable modifications to the rules passed elsewhere.

First, kids can't promote video games. Weird, but okay. More importantly, there's a provision banning the formation of collectives by employees of member institutions. This means that no public school employees can create one of the collectives that have come to dominate the NIL landscape. While this won't stop groups of wealthy alumni from creating them (which is mostly already the case), school employees won't be allowed to interact with them, negating the recent ruling allowing for this behavior from the NCAA.

This provision bears watching going forward, both as a potential precedent for other states looking for ways to reign in the growing chaos of collective-based recruiting and as a potential competitive disadvantage if other states don't follow with their own restrictive measures.

Purdue and North Texas filled their head spots with Illinois DC Ryan Walters and Washington State OC Eric Morris, respectively. The former is signing for five years while details on the latter haven't been finalized. Morris was actually a former walk on receiver for Leach at Texas Tech from 2005-2008, and he ran a variation of his former coach's offense while calling plays at WSU this season, Leach's former stop prior to landing in Starkville.

My curiosity on the math behind game lines and predictions led me down the rabbit hole that is the sports gambling industry. Even if you're not a bettor yourself, I highly recommend checking out the Raising Stake newsletter, one of the best sources of in-depth coverage and analysis of this incredibly fascinating industry, even for just curious observers. The best part? It's free. One click is all it takes:

If you've watched a football game, chances are you've seen a player go down with an injury, stopping the game and prompting training staffs to run out and treat the downed player. Over the last few years, though, the chances that the "injured" player is actually hurt has decreased substantially.

With the explosion of fast-paced offenses, schemes which strategically minimize the time between plays to test the defense's stamina and ability to call plays and line up for the next play, players are getting gassed. I would, too, if I were a 340 pound defensive tackle.

Lacking the ability to sub rested players in and out, coaches are telling their players to fake injuries to stop the clock, giving the defense a chance to catch its breath and sub in a batch of fresh legs. OCs piloting these up-tempo offenses are understandably not thrilled, and neither are fans who have taken to booing players they suspect of acting, oftentimes coming off as pretty classless in doing so.

The NFL has taken steps to address injury-gate, opting to fine players suspected of faking an injury for strategic purposes. Just this past week, the league fined two players, Cameron Jordan of the Saints and Jessie Bates of the Bengals. It was the first of such fines in a decade.

Both players were fined $50K, their position coaches another $50K, their head coaches $100K, and finally their organizations a whopping $350K. As far as fines go, these are pretty massive hits.

The NFL isn't the only league facing this crisis of integrity, though. In fact, it was really the college game which popularized the tactic in recent years. While fake injuries are nothing new, and the "flopping" craze has plagued the NBA and professional soccer for years, the rapid expansion of up-tempo offenses originally at the college level has motivated the trend at both higher and lower levels of the sport.

Coaches, particularly those running these schemes, are voicing their displeasure with the trend. Primarily, this has been through press conferences and media appearances, though this year, Ole Miss HC Lane Kiffin even got caught yelling at an opposing player for allegedly faking an injury during the game:

A bit ironic considering that his own players have garnered quite the reputation for channeling their own inner DiCaprio:

Most defensive coordinators don't exactly approve of these tactics, either. However, they are still quick to point out just how favorable rules have become for offenses, from those regarding the playclock to those for offensive linemen downfield and targeting, both of which tend to hamstring defenses trying to prevent points.

Fake injuries have even made it to the desks of the decision makers of the sport, first in the competition committee at the NCAA meetings prior to the 2020 season when committee chairman and then-Stanford HC David Shaw played a series of comical super serious clips of players dramatically falling to the field as if taken down by SEAL snipers.

Unfortunately, there was a real public health concern that sorta shifted priorities around that time, and the issue was put on hold until this last year when the NCAA was set to propose new rules prior to the season. However, all that these updates did was grant the ability for schools to submit videos of questionable actions to the league office after the game for review, likely leading to no actual consequences.

Curious as to which SEC coach is the biggest tattle-tale.

So what can actually be done to curb the wave of Oscar-seeking performances out of worn out defensive players?

The NFL's fine approach is one possibility. While it might occasionally be a wheezing nose tackle taking the initiative to fake an injury, more often than not it's a coach giving a discrete nose scratch signal. Taking a hefty bite out of coaches' massive salaries via fine could disincentivize this encouragement, hopefully cutting down on the issue.

Fines likely wouldn't (and shouldn't) be extended to players, even in today's NIL world. Players are not legally employed by their schools, conferences, or the NCAA (though the USC story could change that). NFL players are explicitly employed by the league. The line between this distinction might be blurrier than ever before, but I'm firmly in the "fine the coaches and schools, not the players" camp.

Another route that could be taken is looking at the rule regarding the time that an injured player must sit out. Currently, if a player goes down with an injury and forces an injury timeout (which does not count towards a team's allotted breaks), that player is required to come off the field for a minimum of one play.

For a genuinely injured player, that makes sense, and they're often sidelined for longer. However, others have looked to the sideline, gotten a signal, and gone down with an "ailment" just to sprint back on the field on the very next play.

Addressing this rule might actually see some traction, such as extending the required time off to a period of at least the series or even a quarter. Losing key players for an entire drive might be far more dissuading than having them come off for a single play. Or at the very least, we might get to see some walk ons get some time?

Some might be concerned over whether this rule change would unfairly punish genuinely injured players, but I again ask whether a seriously hurt player should be returning to the game after a single play off anyways?

I'm as impressed by the stories of players playing through broken hands and concussions as anyone, but at some point, coaches have a responsibility to their players to protect them, even if it's from themselves. Requiring them to sit out for a few plays longer than they otherwise would've might kill two birds with one stone by partially solving the fake injury issue while also preventing further real injury.

This proposal has even gained some momentum from coaches like Oklahoma State's Mike Gundy:

As of now, no immediate rule changes loom. Until they do, expect the trend of college football players faking injuries to continue, and "can cry on command" could become part of recruiting staffs' evaluation criteria for grading potential prospects.

The first bowl games are today with UAB taking on Miami, Ohio and Troy taking on the UTSA Roadrunners. From here, there are games pretty much every day through the end of the year, so don't bother trying to get in touch lol. A full schedule can be found here.

Finally, shameless plug: I was invited by my friends from the Utah Sports Report to speak on the current landscape of the world of NIL. Whether you're just interested in learning more about what NIL even is or you're a seasoned vet wanting a quick briefing on what the latest rules mean in everyday words, I think there's some really valuable stuff that we dig into.

Cheers to another day,

Trey