Important Rule Changes for the 2022 College Football Season

OXFORD, Miss. – It has become a familiar scene for college football fans. An up-tempo offense is driving the ball at a fast pace and to slow them down, a defense has a mysterious injury forcing play to be stopped.

Of course, usually the injured player makes a miraculous recovery and returns to the field a play later, but the mission of disrupting the offense’s momentum has been accomplished.

This season, a plan has been put into place to at least look into this defensive ploy.

The National Football Foundation and College Football Officiating has decided to create an investigative body to address this scenario. Teams can now report to the committee questionable injuries after the fact, but still nothing will be done during the game.

“We considered all options to address this issue, including allowing both teams an opportunity to substitute after a first down,” Football Rules Committee chair David Shaw said. “This is another step to consider in the future.”

Appeal of Targeting Carryover Rule

Other rule changes include teams can now appeal the targeting carryover rule. Currently, when a player is called for targeting in the second half of a game, he must sit out the first half of the next game. 

Now, the conference can appeal the call to the NCAA national coordinator of officials who will review the call. If it is deemed the player did not commit the targeting foul, he will be eligible to play in the first half of the next game.

Deceptive Injury Timeout Investigation Process

To address teams that are awarded an injury timeout through deceptive actions, panel members approved a reporting and investigation process. Schools and conferences will be able to report questionable scenarios to the national coordinator of officials, who will review and provide feedback to the conference for further action. Any penalties levied would be up to the conference office or school involved.

The NCAA Football Rules Committee considered several in-game options to address this, including altering the injury timeout rule to remove the injured student-athlete for more than one play. Currently, an injured player is required to sit out one play. This concept was debated at length, but the committee was concerned with the additional issues that could be created and did not want to encourage players to continue to participate when injured.

Committee members discussed how the pace of play appears to be contributing to this concern. “We considered all options to address this issue, including allowing both teams an opportunity to substitute after a first down,” Shaw said. “This is another step to consider in the future.”

Blocking below the waist 

To make the game safer, blocking below the waist is now only permitted by interior linemen and by stationary backs outside of the tackle box.

Additional changes

• Defensive holding: Also, defensive holding remains a ten-yard penalty, but now will also carry with it an automatic first down.
• Feet first slide: When a ball carrier initiates a feet-first slide, he is now going to be marked down at the spot he begins the slide.
• Illegal touching: Illegal touching will now carry a five-yard penalty from the original spot of the play and will result in a loss of down.
• New hand signal: There will also be a new hand signal for officials to indicate an illegal blind side block. The official will display both fists coming together in front of his chest to make the call.