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Flopping Comes To Football

The Oregon Ducks have the best offense in college football, and part of their style involves a frenetic hurry-up pace that wears down defenses. Opponents have responded with a rash of fake injuries:

That is pretty fake, alright.

I remember a high school football game where my team was down by a touchdown late in the game and out of time outs. Our coach grabbed a teammate and sent him into the game as a substitute with instructions to fake an injury after the next play, so as to stop the clock. The player was known as one of the less bright kids on the football team, which is really saying something. Anyway, after the play, he started hopping around as if he had hurt his ankle. He then fake-limped back to the huddle. I remember thinking to myself, My God, he is faking an injury, but he's faking the kind of injury you play through. Our coach had failed to explicitly spell out that he was supposed to fall to the ground with his fake injury and be helped off the field. And this was not the kind of kid to figure that sort of thing out on his own.

We lost.