mrydel wrote:If you are down with an injury you cannot come back until you are out at least one play. So your facts are wrong.
I would be very much in favor of having a player have to sit out until change of possession if play is stopped for an injury. More so for the player's safety than anything else. But it could also cause players to continue play when they should not. One year during my time, I believe it was 1971, the rules were changed where if a player was down with an injury and play had to be stopped, the team with the injured player lost a timeout. It was terrible. When players got hurt, even if knocked out or broken bones, coaches and trainers would run onto the field and drag them quickly to the sideline so as to not lose a timeout. Safety of the players has to come before the speed of the game.
I know that is the rule, but it does not mean I'm wrong. Check the replay if you don't believe me.
With 4:06 left in the 4th quarter, 2 players went down, Yenga and Hunt. Yenga was laying on his back with UH trying to line up for the next play when they came on to the field to check on Hunt. Yenga got up for a second, then went back to his knees almost immediately. Hunt was walked off the field, but Yenga stayed in and played.
Maybe Yenga went back down to rest/recover when he saw they were coming to look at Hunt and maybe he would have gotten up and stayed up if Hunt hadn't been down, but he was definitely down as UH was trying to line up and he went back down.
The whole faking injuries thing is such a sticky situation. I don't think Jones did it as much this year as he did last year or the year before. He might not have done it at all this year. SMU definitely didn't do it as bad as Tulsa did last year when there was a parade of players who went down for 1 play and came back the next.
But of course the players' health is the biggest priority so a ref can't assume a player is faking even if it appears to be planned. You're right that rules that prevent players from coming back might encourage players to play when the shouldn't. That's why it is horrible for any coach to use these types of tactics. I don't know that Jones used those tactics on Saturday, but I know coaches do it and Leach said coaches do it against UH. I think he used it himself last year at TT vs UH. When it is used against you and you know it, you start to be suspicious of many injuries. Unfortunately that would include some legitimate ones.