The NCAA announced several rules changes in a recent press release for the upcoming 2025 college football season. Among the changes are optional equipment like eye shields, technology tablet updates, and coach-to-player communications at the FCS level, scrimmage kick formations, defensive pre-snap movement penalties, disconcerting signals, and more can be found here.
However, one rule change in particular could greatly benefit FSU in 2025. Teams that have players who feign injuries will not get away with it anymore:
"To combat the practice of feigning injuries, the rules committee passed a rule that if a player presents as injured after the ball is spotted by officials, that team will be charged a Team Timeout or a delay penalty if all timeouts have been used. That player must remain out of the game for at least one down, even if that team is granted a team timeout, and may not return to the game until receiving approval of professional medical personnel designated by their institution."
FSU hiring new offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn could present a major headache for teams that like to do this. Malzahn likes to go fast on offense, and FSU players have already mentioned how fast the pace is during spring and fall practices. Malzahn doesn't always go up-tempo, but when he decides to, the offense can rattle off plays with lightning speed if he catches teams in a defensive formation or package that's not suitable to stop what his offense is attacking.
Malzahn's offense averaged 68.9 plays per game in 2024 at UCF and 68.8 in 2023. However, it averaged 76 per game in 2022 before the NCAA made a change to how the clock runs.
FSU will have some games where Malzahn will likely go uptempo often, and others where it'll depend on how the game is flowing. Uptempo can be a gift and a curse, and it'll depend on how well the FSU defense is defending as well.
I like this rule change because it did feel cheap when teams would fake an injury to stop a team from gashing them with an uptempo offense. Some teams are more obvious about doing it than others, so it'll be interesting to see how the referees monitor it.
I'm sure some coaches will build in some type of signal for a player to go down before the ball is spotted if they feel the team is losing momentum against an uptempo offense. We'll have to keep this in mind if Malzahn gets a defense on its heels in 2025.