Fake an injury? That’s a flag. Celebrate with a fake firearm? That’s a 15-yard penalty. College football is undergoing some of its more noticeable rule changes in recent memory.

Rule changes by their very nature might not seem like overhauls on the surface, but as any college football fan will tell you, a flag at the wrong time can have a major impact on the sport’s biggest games. 

Let’s break down what you can expect this season on the college gridiron.

Updated Touchdown Celebration Rules

A big point of emphasis this season in college football is going to be celebrations. Players won’t want to use fake guns as a celebration tool or else it’s going to be an automatic penalty.

Don’t shoot your pretend gun. Don’t show that you have one tucked away. Don’t act like there’s any recoil. Just leave that out of it this year, and there won’t be any penalties.

With that, no fake acts of violence in general. The throat slash is already an awful signal, so players should plan on leaving that one out this season too.

In some ways, college football has gotten a little more liberal with its celebrations. Now, you can spike the football and there are some other things that are permitted a little more. They are tightening up on certain things.

No weapons should be seen on the field this season. Otherwise, it’s likely to cost your team 15 yards.

Penalizing Fake Injuries

A round of applause for the NCAA, which is the first major football organization to address the issue of faking injuries.

With teams playing at a fast pace and high tempo with no huddles, the best way for some teams to slow down that speed is to have a player go down on defense to stop the game. Suddenly, you’d see a player grab a hamstring or ankle and sit down to stop the game. Teams will be discouraged to put that into practice this season.

The problem was: how were officials supposed to address that? How should they know if it’s a legitimate injury? Officials are not interested in guessing whether a player is actually injured.

I’m a big fan of what the NCAA has done to combat this.

If a player goes down after the ball has been placed for the next play, the team will be charged a timeout. If that team doesn’t have any timeouts left, there will be a penalty for delay of game.

I think these punishments will stop this from happening. There’s a way to do it legally, and I think a lot of teams were coaching it up to be done legally. The rules said it was unethical, but there’s no penalty for that. Now, there is a punishment, which I think is a very good thing for the game.

Roughing the Passer Update

Everybody wants to make sure quarterbacks are protected, and I get that. For this season in college football, there were a few words added to the rule for roughing the passer.

The goal is to protect the player who’s in a passing posture. That means if he’s in the pocket and looking down the field, he’s defenseless. He might be able to feel pressure coming from either side, but he’s essentially a defenseless player. As long as a quarterback is in that passing posture, whether he’s going to throw it or get sacked before he throws it, that’s what they’ll consider a passing posture.

If that quarterback takes off running or is on the run, that’s not a passing posture until the player stops and gets set again to a point where it’s clear he’s a passer. That passing posture will be key for this season.

Something else on player safety that has also been addressed this season is a player who is attempting to secure a loose ball. When the ball is fumbled or there’s a muffed punt, you have players going after it. Those players are now considered defenseless.

What does that mean? Well, if someone is idiotic enough to try to hit that player instead of making an effort to recover the football, that will be a penalty.

It’s a wrinkle to the rule that was likely added because it happened once in a game and there was no way to enforce it. I don’t think this will really come up, but it’s something that was covered.

New Overtime Timeout Rules

Overtime in college football isn’t going to change too much, but there are changes to it.

The format itself isn’t going to change, really. Each team will still get the ball and is able to kick the extra point after a touchdown in the first overtime period, then it will have to attempt the 2-point conversion.

How timeouts worked was that both teams got a timeout for both the first and second overtime periods. Next, though, is where the change will come.

Entering the third overtime period, each team will only get one timeout to use for the rest of the game. The goal is to keep the game condensed without going eight or nine periods while still remaining competitive.

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