An injury should not give the opposing team clock-based relief. College football has to change this rule for 2024.
An entire nation of college football fans reacted with shock as the Texas Longhorns — about to lose the 2024 Sugar Bowl to the Washington Huskies — received an unexpected lifeline in the final minute of regulation.
Washington, leading by six with a minute left and Texas having no timeouts, executed a running play with roughly one minute left. The play clock would have run 40 seconds, which would have taken the game clock near 15 seconds. Washington would have then punted and left Texas with close to 10 seconds left and the whole field to go. That’s basically “game over.”
While it’s true that Washington should have taken a knee, the Huskies did not fumble the ball. The running play itself occurred without a turnover or a player running out of bounds. That should have been enough to drain the 45 seconds of clock (40 for the play clock, five seconds for the play itself).
However, running back Dillon Johnson got injured. He couldn’t get up.
The clock stopped and did not restart when the ball was ready for play. The clock restarted on the next snap, which was a fourth-down snap. Texas was bailed out by this injury and was able to start its possession not with 10 to 12 seconds left, but with almost 50 seconds left. Texas gained nearly 40 seconds just because a Washington player got injured.
Does that seem fair? Injuries are part of football. It is not a failure of a team to have a player get injured. In no way should a team be punished for a player getting injured, especially since an injury itself hurts a team quite a lot, particularly if the injured player is a star or a core part of the team.
Next season, last-minute injuries should not permanently stop the clock. That’s basic common sense.
Of course, if a defensive player goes down with an injury to stop a hurry-up offense, that’s a different situation. College football could make sure players aren’t taking dives to fake out the refs. This situation in the Sugar Bowl was nothing like that, however. The stop-clock rule has to be changed.
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