Lane Kiffin will probably cringe at NCAA's latest rule change involving fake injuries

A key part of every college football offseason is the introduction of new rules that will be put in place for the upcoming season. Over the years we've seen the NCAA make changes with kickoffs, overtime periods, and clock rules. Now, they're taking measures to address an issue that had been running rampant across the sport.

NCAA implements rule change to crack down on fake injuries in college football

An epidemic of fake injuries has been plaguing college football for several years now. We've seen countless cases of uninjured players falling to the ground in phony agony to score a free timeout for their team and slow down the opposition.

Even in the most obvious cases, officials haven't done anything to address the issue because if by some small chance a player were actually hurt, doling out a penalty would be a bad look. And technically speaking, there was no actually penalty that could be called by the rulebook.

Last November, the SEC issued a warning to its members that any team suspected of faking an injury was subject to fines or suspensions. The NCAA, like always, is late to the party, but they're finally taking steps to resolve things.

Starting this fall, if a team has medical personnel enter the field to tend to an injured player after the officials have spotted the ball for play, that team will be charged a timeout. If that team has no timeouts remaining, a 5-yard penalty will be addressed for delay of game.

In nearly every case of a fake injury, the player who goes down does so after the ball has been spotted, as it's almost always a defender going down to prevent the offense from snapping the ball before the defense is ready. With most legitimate injuries, the hurt player would already be down prior to the ball being spotted.

The most notable criticism here is there are situations in which an injury may not become obvious until several seconds after the previous play. Some guys don't realize they're actually hurt in the moment of the play. And in the case of cramps, those could certainly come on after the ball has been spotted. Chances are, there will be at least a few instances this fall where a timeout is charged to a team that had no bad intentions.

That said, the issue was getting so out of control that the NCAA had to do something about it, and this will prevent the majority of cases. And it's not entirely dissimilar to the NFL's rules for injury timeouts, where if a player goes down in the final two minutes of a half, his team is charged a timeout or a 10-second runoff is enforced.

Lane Kiffin and Ole Miss will have to find a new strategy to bend the rules on stopping the clock

For most programs, this new rule won't change much. While nearly everyone has faked an injury at one point or another, almost no one does it enough for it to be considered a part of their reputation. But there is one program that's notorious for fake injuries that's probably unhappy right now...

Lane Kiffin's Ole Miss Rebels have been the face of the fake injury epidemic, as they've abused that loophole more than anyone else over the past five years. It's such a big part of that program's DNA that some are calling the new rule the "Lane Kiffin Rule."

Ole Miss fans will argue (and have) that a rule change is actually what Kiffin had wanted all along, and his strategy was all a big protest to inspire change. Sure. This is the program that definitely wants fake injuries to go away...

I guess Kiffin and the Rebels will have to find a new way to bend the rules going forward. I'm sure he's already working on a new strategy.