NCAA Announces CFB Rule Changes for 2025, Including Effort to Combat Fake Injuries

The NCAA is instituting new rule changes in college football for the 2025 season, one of which will address a questionable tactic.

Per Alex Byington of On3.com, the new timeout rules will penalize teams for faking injuries in hopes of slowing the game down.

"Under the new rule, if medical personnel are forced to enter the field of play to evaluate an injured player after the ball is spotted by the officiating crew, the player’s team will be charged a timeout," Byington stated. "If that team doesn’t have any remaining timeouts, a five-yard delay-of-game penalty will be assessed."

Byington noted that the injury timeout penalty "came after many within the college football community expressed concern that some teams were having players fake injuries to slow down the opposition’s momentum or to avoid taking a timeout." The rule change was originally proposed by the NCAA Football Rules Committee earlier this offseason.

Prior to this year's adjustment, teams were required to send video of questionable injuries to NCAA national coordinator of officials Steve Shaw, who would review them before contacting an offending team's conference if it was determined that the injury was fake. The hope is that the in-game penalty will prevent teams from utilizing the tactic going forward.

The NCAA also approved a change to overtime rules that limits teams to a single timeout beginning with the third overtime. Teams previously had a single overtime in each overtime period, but it's clear that the NCAA is hoping to avoid frequent occurrences of seemingly never-ending games.

Perhaps most interestingly, the NCAA announced "enhanced rules" that are meant to curtail the use of any pre-snap activity that distract opponents in the process of snapping the ball. Defensive players are now banned from mimicking offensive signals, and offensive players cannot use terms typically reserved for the defense.

The full list of NCAA rule changes for the 2025 season can be found here.