‘We Don’t Get to Practice That’ Like Tennessee-Ole Miss

It was first question for SEC coordinator of football officiating John McDaid and he admitted it's not the norm

Author:
Andy Hodges
Publish date:
Jul 19, 2022 2:14 PM EDT

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — It didn't take the media long to get to last season's biggest question mark for officials.

The end of the Tennessee-Ole Miss game in Knoxville, Tenn., had a long delay at the end with fans throwing just about everything except the restroom sinks at former Vols coach Lane Kiffin.

Lane Kiffin throws up his arms at one point in Ole Miss' win over Arkansas last October. (Marvin Gentry/USA TODAY Images)

"We don't get to practice that a lot," SEC coordinator of officials John McDaid said Tuesday morning at SEC Media Days in Atlanta.

That is out of the normal game situation.

The one thing they haven't figured out for four years is how to handle players faking injuries to stop the clock when they've run out of other ways.

"If there was a way, we probably would have come up with it by now," McDaid said. "This is not an issue that's going to be addressed by the playing rules. It's going to have to be addressed a different way."

Fans think they know when a player is injured.

They don't have the risk. The guys in the striped shirt carry that.

"Our guys are not medical professionals," McDaid said. "I don't ask my officials to evaluate in any way, shape or form whether it's a legitimate injury or not. If we have a player down not ready to play we need to stop the game for an official's timeout."

The translation to that is they are taking the safest path. No problem with that. All it would take is one injury ignored to really create a problem.

It will have to done with fines or suspensions, although how you prove it is something for others to figure it out.

For now, though, it's probably not going to change.