Lane Kiffin Had An ‘Interesting’ Take On Folks Praising Oregon For 12-Man Penalty, But ‘Tirades’ On Injuries

Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin found himself talking about the differences between the praising of Dan Lanning for Oregon’s 12-man penalty and the tirades people go on about injuries occurring in college football. 

The hottest topic of conversation around football this week has centered around the Oregon versus Ohio State game this past weekend, and the 12-man penalty that Dan Lanning seemingly confirmed he took in the final moments of Saturday night’s thriller in Eugene. 

By now, you have all most likely seen the penalty that has been discussed, where Oregon was called for having too many players on the field with ten seconds remaining in its game against Ohio State. This led to the NCAA actually making a change to the rule on Wednesday, which allows the offense to reset the game clock if the opposing defense is penalized for having too many men on the field if it’s in the final two-minutes of each half. 

The conversation surrounding Dan Lanning using a loophole in the rulebook made its way to the SEC coaches teleconference on Wednesday. During his time on the call, Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin was asked about the situation, and if the Rebels had practiced those types of scenarios. Following the initial question, the head coach said that Dan Lanning ‘capitalized on the situation’ and mentioned that he heard the Ducks coach discussing how they practice those scenarios. 

Kiffin, not one to shy away from a question, confirmed that his team does practice those situations. When he was asked in a follow-up, he presented a correlation between the praise that Oregon has received, but the ‘tirades’ that folks go on about fake injuries in college football.

“It’s interesting that I find all this national talk about someone with an injury and ‘people shouldn’t do that’ – I’m not saying I don’t agree with that,” Kiffin noted on the call. “But I just found it interesting that everybody thinks this is awesome that you purposely went against the rules and put more people on the field, but then everybody goes on this tirade about when a team has an injury. 

 “It’s kind of interesting.”

In a way, Kiffin does make a point about intentionally forcing a penalty to be called, and teams potentially having players take a dive to create a timeout situation. 

Either way, I don’t think people were expecting the conversation about the 12-man penalty that Oregon committed to shift towards the ongoing chatter about faking injuries in college football. 

In one instance, the NCAA found a way to change a rule in the middle of the week, while on the other hand, it’s going to be an interesting off-season on how the rules’ committee decides to move forward on dealing with ‘feigned injuries’ in college athletics.