Nick Saban Breaks Silence on College Football Players Faking Injuries

College football is constantly changing, and this offseason was proof of that. The SEC, Big Ten, ACC, and Pac-12 added new teams to their ranks.

The speed of college football is also constantly changing, and the Tennessee Volunteers' offense is an excellent example, running 75 plays each game. Tennessee runs the fourth-most plays per game in 2024 behind the Arkansas Razorbacks, UTSA, and Syracuse Orange.

Unfortunately, it also means that defenses are starting to adjust to how schools like Tennessee run their offense, even if that means faking injuries.

College football fans accused the Ole Miss Rebels of faking injuries against the Kentucky Wildcats, and the school responded to those claims by saying that it would comply. A video of Ole Miss running back Matt Jones, who appeared to receive a signal from the sidelines before falling down, was posted online by On3 Sports.

On "College GameDay," former Alabama head coach and college football legend Nick Saban weighed in on how fake injuries impact college football. Saban harped on head coaches for telling players to fake injuries.

“This is the integrity of the game, and there’s no player that flops in the game without a signal from the coach to slow the game down," Saban said. "There’s a history behind this because, in the old days, you had to get up and run off the field if you were injured. I mean, I broke my leg, and I got up to run off the field. Then, fastball came along. So everyone said if you’re injured, ‘stay down, stay down, don’t get up’ because we can’t substitute fast enough.

Saban believed college football should institute a rule change to keep teams from benefitting from fake injuries, calling for a charged timeout for the guilty party.

"Now people are taking advantage of this rule, but until there’s a penalty for it—and I know it’s a sensitive subject for an official to determine if a player is truly injured or not—there should be a flop rule," Saban said. "If a player gets out, runs down, and then right before the play starts, flops, maybe it should result in a charged timeout for that team. It’s obvious in some situations that players are flopping and aren’t injured every game.”

Related: Nick Saban Reveals One SEC Venue That Was Never Hard to Play at