Fake Injuries Fire Up Fans

EUGENE, Oregon - Fake injuries are creating real problems for Oregon football fans.

It goes something like this: the Ducks reel off three or four plays in succession - barely allowing the timer to reset the play clock before they hike the ball - and begin marching up the field when an opposing defender falls to the ground, stopping play.

As the defensive lineman or linebacker writhes on the turf at Autzen Stadium, Oregon fans shower the field with a chorus of boos.

If you didn't know why they were doing it, you might react to Duck fans the way the Cal student section did in Berkeley a few weeks ago: with middle fingers extended on both hands.

The Cal kids were clueless as to why 20,000 visiting fans were being so mean to the Golden Bears player who was lying on the field, but pretty much everyone else knows by now why Duck Nation is booing injured players.

Because they're not always injured.

Oregon's high-octane offense is designed to wear down defenses, and to catch opponents off guard, which the Ducks do several times a game.

And several times a game, coach Chip Kelly can be seen imploring the officials to set the ball faster at the end of each play, so that center Jordan Holmes can hike the ball faster to quarterback Darron Thomas, so that the Ducks can move faster, score faster and win bigger.

It's a strategy that's worked wonders, to the tune of 11 victories against zero losses with one regular-season game left in 2010 - Saturday's 12:30 p.m. Civil War contest against Oregon State in Corvallis.

On November 13 in Berkeley, Cal employed another strategy that's worked ... sort of.

A YouTube video has circulated wide and far - particularly among the Duck faithful - that shows a Cal defender, at the end of a play, take a few steps without any limp whatsoever, look over to the sideline, then fall down as if in pain. Trainers run out on the field to tend to the "injured" player, who takes his time getting up and fake-limping to the sideline.

The idea is to buy the rest of the players a minute or two to catch their breath, something Oregon's offensive tempo manages to take away, both literally and figuratively.

Leading up to the Cal game, Oregon fans had already long suspected that opponents were faking injuries in attempt to buy a few precious moments on the field without having to burn timeouts. They accused Arizona State of doing so down in Tempe. Stanford appeared to turn to such tactics against the Ducks in Eugene.

And then came the Cal game, during which several Golden Bears flopped to the field with apparent injuries nearly every time the Ducks got a little momentum going offensively.

And the boos followed, loud and harsh.

I absolutely understand it. But the thing is, I don't think we want to be known as the school that boos when a player gets hurt.

Because twice against Arizona at Autzen Stadium on Friday, defensive players went down with injuries, and twice, Oregon fans booed mercilessly.

Only problem was, both guys were actually hurt.

The first was particularly obvious. Wildcats senior safety Joe Perkins went down in the third quarter after tweaking his ankle while trying to guard receiver D.J. Davis after Davis caught a pass from Thomas. Perkins was limping before the play was over, and after the play, he tried to take a couple of steps before dropping to the turf. Oregon fans booed loudly as trainers ran out to assist Perkins, who hobbled off the field, with help, on one leg. He limped around on the sideline, and later returned to the game, still with an obvious limp.

Oops.

Wildcats coach Mike Stoops had insisted before the game he would not resort to faking injuries to try to slow the Ducks. And I don't believe he did. But I can understand other Oregon fans not being quite willing to take an opposing coach's word for it.

After initially denying that his team had turned to the fake-injury strategy in a 15-13 loss to the Ducks, Cal coach Jeff Tedford eventually acknowledged some wrongdoing - on the part of his defensive coordinator, Tosh Lupoi, whom Tedford suspended for the Golden Bears' November 27 game against Washington.

I don't think anyone outside of Berkeley believes Lupoi was acting on his own. But since the YouTube video was so widely distributed, and the intention so blatantly obvious, Tedford tossed Lupoi under the proverbial bus, perhaps to save face, or perhaps to keep the Pac-10 Conference, or the NCAA, from acting on its own.

Acting. That's what it's all about. And since USC students are generally the Pac-10's best-trained in that particular art, football players at Cal, ASU and Stanford stood little chance of getting good reviews from Oregon critics.

But the Arizona game presents a whole new problem, because booing injured players is just, well, bad.

The NCAA needs to do something more than the soft rulebook entry that waxes almost poetically about how faking injuries is unethical. A lot of things that happen in college football - on the recruiting trail, behind the scenes, in the stands, on the sidelines - are unethical. So you're not going to make much of a dent by telling coaches to play nice or else they'll be known as bad people. This is a cut-throat industry, where winning means millions of dollars in contracts and incentives, so cutting corners here and there to get ahead - or try to, anyway - is pretty much common practice.

No, the NCAA needs to apply real, tangible consequences to faking injuries. Some have suggested that if a player gets injured, he automatically sits for the rest of the drive. Two major problems with that: First, teams will simply bring in a third-string D-lineman to take a dive, then leave him out until the next defensive series, at which point he'll take another one.

In other words, by employing that type of a rule, you're essentially making the practice OK, and even manageable. Leave your stars in the game, trot out a backup to take a dive, slow down the tempo of the game long enough for the players to get some water and catch their breath, then continue on with things.

The other problem is, such a rule ends up punishing teams whose players really are hurt and really did just need to stretch out a cramped muscle or get an ankle re-taped.

No, the punishment needs to cut deeper, so that coaches don't turn to the strategy at all, and if they do, they'll suffer for it. Perhaps add an injury timeout to each team's per-half allotment, or assess a five-yard penalty if a player requires medical attention and his team is out of timeouts.

Football insiders more knowledgeable than me can debate what, exactly, should be done, but the NCAA needs to do something.

Otherwise, some defensive lineman is going to injure himself pretty badly on a play at Autzen Stadium, and rather than standing, and holding their breath, and maintaining a respectful silence while the player is tended to, Oregon fans will be booing.

And we really don't want to be known as that school.

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Originally published on Wired Oregon