A player stumbled, then slid to the ground. Whistles blew. The game stopped. Boos cascaded from the stands. And if the scene seemed oddly familiar, it’s because the Cal Bears had been there before — on the other end of the jeers.
Last Saturday, fans at California Memorial Stadium suspected Northwestern’s defensive players were feigning injury in order to slow down Cal’s newly installed uptempo offense. They loudly registered their displeasure, creating a delicious irony for anyone with a decent short-term memory.
Three seasons earlier, when Chip Kelly brought his supersonic offense to Memorial Stadium, the Bears flopped — and they were very bad actors. A sizable contingent of Oregon fans who’d made the trip booed. And a few weeks later, Cal suspended defensive line coach Tosh Lupoi, who admitted he had instructed players to go down in order to slow down the Ducks.
That was then, under Jeff Tedford. This is now, under Sonny Dykes, the first-year coach who’s brought the hurry-up no-huddle to the home sidelines. Dykes didn’t boo — and very carefully, he has refrained from accusing Northwestern of flopping — but he told USA TODAY Sports, “I was unhappy about it, too.”
Over the summer, college football coaches skirmished over whether the proliferation of uptempo offense has increased the risk of injuries. Dykes disputes that idea. But he’s pretty sure there’s been an uptick in fake injuries.
What happened Saturday?
“It’s hard to say,” Dykes said. “It’s a hard thing to accuse somebody of, it just is. But I think it had an effect on us.”
Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald bristled at the notion. “If anybody were to question the integrity of myself, our program or our players, I question theirs,” Fitzgerald told the Chicago Sun-Times, and then he outlined his instructions to injured players: Instead of heading for the sidelines, go down and wait for help.
That was apparently the situation across the country in Clemson, S.C., when fans booed when Georgia linebacker Leonard Floyd dropped to the ground under suspicious conditions, momentarily halting the Tigers’ hurry-up. During a teleconference Sunday evening with reporters, Georgia coach Mark Richt said Floyd was “hit in his privates real hard” on the previous play. But Richt also revealed his strategy, which is the same as Fitzgerald’s.
“When a guy’s injured, he needs to just stay down,” Richt said. “In the past, you’d say, ‘Hey, be brave and be tough and try to drag yourself off the field.’ But what happens is when you do that, you give the other team the advantage. So if you’re hurt, just stay down until the officials stop play, and then come off the field and let the next guy in.”
The distinction between that and outright flopping is subtle. Even if, as Dykes and several others suspect, it’s gamesmanship designed to slow down and disrupt offensive rhythm, there’s no real remedy. Coaches yammer at officials — who are powerless to stop it.
“There’s nothing an official can do but assume it’s an injury and go on,” said Rogers Redding, the national coordinator of college football officiating. “They’re in the recognize-and-refer business, not the diagnosis business.”
Redding won’t hazard a guess whether defenses are flopping — “You hear rumors,” he said — but coaches on both sides of the ball admit it’s happening.
“It’s gone on since I’ve been a part of this offense,” Texas Tech coach Kliff Kingsbury said.
Back in 2010, it wasn’t just Cal trying to slow down the Ducks. Kelly suspected other opponents of flopping, too. During a TV interview coming off the field at halftime against Arizona State, when Kelly said the atmosphere was like “a World Cup game, with the crowd and the injuries,” his meaning was obvious.
The topic is covered in the American Football Coaches Association’s Code of Ethics: “Deliberately teaching players to violate the rules is indefensible. The coaching of feigning injury will break down rather than aid in the building of the character of players.”
“Some coaches are more ethical than others, that’s just the way it is,” a frustrated Dykes said, “just like some bankers are more ethical than others.”
But he knows with current rules, there’s no way to police it.
“We don’t do that,” Oklahoma defensive coordinator Mike Stoops said. “I don’t believe in it. But if people want to do that, if everybody keeps doing it, how do they know if somebody is hurt or not?”
Last summer, Arkansas coach Bret Bielema suggested a rule change to slow down the offenses: a mandatory pause after every first down, long enough to allow defenses to make substitutions. Bielema and others say it’s important for safety, but the proposal — as well as the idea that hurry-up offenses endanger players — gets guys like Dykes riled. He and Kingsbury would like to see a rule requiring an injured player to remain on the sidelines for several plays before returning to play.
“No. 1, that helps with player safety,” Dykes said. “No. 2, that takes (feigning injuries) out of the game, which I think has become a problem and is gonna do nothing but increase. We have all the time where a guy lays on the field, all the trainers come out, he lays there three or four minutes, gets up and jogs off the field, and he’s back in the next play.
“You tell me, is that a serious injury? … If you’re required to sit out five plays, I think the questions get answered pretty quickly.”
Bielema’s proposal didn’t get much traction, and Dykes’ idea isn’t likely to, either. As the hurry-up proliferates, flopping will, too. We’ll see more scenes like last Saturday night in Berkeley, which is too bad — there’s nothing tasteful about booing players who, in more cases than not, actually are injured. But a defensive strategy that makes a mockery of real injuries?
That leaves a bad taste, too.
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