The Josh Innes Show - College Football Rules Changes

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

Big picture, the rules changes aren't that big of a deal. But, lets break em down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Well, I'm always intrigued to read about rule changes. You know, basically any time I see a story that it revolves around rule changes in a sport, I like to read and find out what's going to change and what's not going to change and then tell you things that I think should change. And as you know, I have plenty of thoughts. Like, I believe, like I was listening to a broadcast, actually. I was listening to a preseason broadcast, NFL broadcast. I was driving a loner car and the loner car had XM, so I got to listen to all of the football games if I so choose.

And because I'm a degenerate gambler, I'm like, hell, yeah, I'll listen to a preseason football game. Hello, Bears, I'm in. And I'm listening to one of these broadcasts, and it's a close game that may come down to an onside kick. And one of the guys starts talking about how he thinks it's asinine, that you have to tell people that you're going to kick it on side. And I'm like, yeah, obviously it is. It's dumb that you have to let people know you're kicking it on side because that takes away the element of surprise. It's the same thing as if you lined up and you had to tell the defense, It's, hey, guys, just so you know, we're going to pass here.

We're not going to tell you where we're going to pass it, but we are passing here. So please be aware that a pass is coming. Like, it is stupid to have to do that to let people know, like, hey, we're kicking an on-side kick. It's dumb. But speaking of on-side kicks, you know that I'm a big proponent of the change that would make an on-side kick meaningless. You would change it from a kicking situation to a passing situation, and you get one down to convert a 20-yard first down. And if you do, the drive continues. I think that would be spectacular. I wish the league would do it. People might scoff at it initially. But the second you

watch it happening and you see how it impacts your team. And if your team converts on that fourth and 20 play and continues the game, something that's far more likely to happen, a 20-yard completion in the NFL is far more likely to happen than the recovery of an onside kick, which might happen a handful of times a year, those are the things you want to see. You want to see rules that will take events that are highly unlikely and make them more likely to have a positive outcome. The positive outcome of an on-side kick as someone recovers it and the game continues. And when it happens, it's really neat. It's fun to watch.

It just doesn't happen. Actually, let's see. Here's what I want to see. How many on-side kicks are successful? 2024. Here we go. Under the new dynamic kickoff rules, there were three successful on-side kicks out of 50 attempts. First of all, I would have thought there were more than 50 attempts, considering the number of games there are each week.

But there were only 50 on-side kick attempts, 6% success rate. Now I'd like to know how many 4th and 20s were converted. Like, okay, the odds are that doesn't exist. but how many 4th and 20 plus yard plays were successful? There can't be that many. There's no specific statistic readily available. Oh, get with it. It's a rare event and the success rate is very low.

Of course it is. But like, if you look at the number of 20-yard plays that have been converted, there are plenty of them. So a 6% likelihood of recovering an onside kick versus you got Joe Burrow and Jemar Chase and you've got one pass to get 20 yards. That would be great. And that's a rule change I'd like to see. Let's play a couple commercials. And then let's look at what these college football rule changes are for the upcoming season.

All right, let's see. Cracking down on fake injuries and penalizing any imitation of brandish. weapons are among rules changes coming to the 2025 college football season. A hot topic among rule implementation preventing teams from faking injuries was a top priority for the rules committee. It was typically done by defenses to stop high tempo offenses or teams with momentum, while it was also done on offense to stop the game clock and get pseudo extra timeout. My question is, how do you prove it?

how do you prove that players are faking an injury and how often do they do that how often have teams been punished for this like obviously it's not a rule now and now it is but how often do you see a situation and can and can prove it without a shadow of a doubt it's easy to sit at home or sit on a radio or television broadcast of a game and say oh this guy's faking it to slow us down and sometimes after the fact you'll see videos of a dude just flat out sitting down and then oh my arm it's broken like like doing the rodney danger field getting himself out of the big match with judge smales you know my arm's broken like one of those type of deals like you'll see that but how do you prove that someone is faking an injury it's like ed runy on the phone because he thinks he's talking to ferris bueller instead of sloan peterson's dad or whatever he's like why don't you come down here and kiss my white ass or whatever and then he ends up finding out that they thinks it is actually Sloan Peterson's

dad or whatever because Ferris Bueller's online too. Like how do you prove it? How do you go out and prove that someone's faking an injury? Now in place for the 2025 season, if a player presents themselves as injured after officials have spotted the ball, that player's team

will be charged a timeout or a delay of game penalty if it has no timeouts left. The player must also sit out at least one play regardless of whether a timeout has been assessed or not and cannot return unless they receive approval from the team's medical personnel. So all this means as teams are going to, as teams are going quickly, you have to fall down and act hurt fast is all this means.

Because once the ball's spotted and you fall down, you can't. So if someone's going up tempo and they pick up like 15 yards, you're way behind the play. You're an offensive lineman. Well, actually, the offensive lineman wouldn't fake the injury. Although I guess if you're on offense, it wouldn't hurt you to do it at times. But it's more so to stop defenses from faking injuries. But to me, that's not the biggest epidemic.

It bothers you when it happens. I just don't view it as something that is that big of a deal. It's not like the biggest hindrance in my watching a football game. There are other rules and other things that could change that I think would make things a lot better. Again, onside kick being eliminated. I actually like the dynamic kickoff. I don't really see why people bitch about it as much as they do. I don't know how many successful kickoff return touchdowns there were in the dynamic kickoff

or how many more returns we had versus touchback. I wish they would take the dynamic kickoff and punish teams even more by moving the ball up to like the 40 for touchbacks. I think that'd be better and I think they would provide a play that people would enjoy watching because people do like kickoffs. People do like puns. They're fun to watch. So I would be very much in favor of moving the ball up even further to like the 40 yard line to really punish teams for touchbacks and make it really hurt. Having the ball of the 35 doesn't really hurt. The 40, the 45, that really starts to hurt you and that will force guys to have to kick it short.

and force returns, and that would be more fun. Other stuff being changed in the rules. Another notable rule change is extending penalties to any celebration that mimics a weapon. Before, only the act that simulated the firing of a weapon results in unsportsmanlike conduct. Now in 2025, an unsportsmanlike conduct flag will be called on a player who brandishes a simulated weapon, like raising a jersey to mimic a gun being held at the waist or pretending to carry a gun. Well, does that also include weapons? What if a guy uses a sword? What if a guy uses a knife? What if a guy uses a crossbow?

What if you told you, hey, it's not a gun. It's a crossbow that I just shot. It's not a shotgun. I'm shooting a crossbow. What if it's a blow gun? Other rule changes. Teams will continue to get one timeout in each of the first two overtime periods. Now teams will only get one time out starting at third overtime and the remainder of the game. Here's an idea. Let's change the rule of overtime and get rid of starting the ball of the game at the 25. Play a full quarter of football, full. length and eliminate the stupid two-point conversion plays, too. It's not football and it's dumb. Instead of saying confirmed or stands, officials will use upheld when announcing reviews that will not be overturned. But what if they did confirm it? What if the video evidence flat out confirms the call?

Why can't you say it's confirmed if you feel confident that it's confirmed? If you don't, like, what is, I'm fine with stands and confirmed. I guess they're trying to cover their basis by saying upheld. I think that's dumb. Any player on the receiving team that makes a T symbol on a kickoff return forfeits the right to return the ball. Well, that makes sense. Any defensive team player within one yard of the line of scrimmage can make any quick abrupt or cannot make – let me just try that one way again.

Any defensive team player within one yard line of scrimmage cannot make any quick, abrupt, or exaggerated actions to simulate action at the snap and are part of the normal defensive player moves. I'm fine with that, but I don't think offensive player should be allowed. Like, the quarterback should not be allowed to do the simulated snap count thing either. Like, the quarterback should not be allowed to consistently move his hands. How is that not a false start? How is it not a false start for a quarterback to do that? And I get that there are different rules for the quarterback, and the quarterback can lift his leg up.

And an offensive lineman can't lift his leg up. That's a false start. But to, like, simulate a fake snap like that, if you're going to punish him, defenders for doing the same shit, then punish the offensive players for it. Defensive players also cannot use disconcerting words or signals like sounds or cadence. I think LSU got screwed on disconcerting signals a couple of times last year. If the defense has more than 11 players on the field after the two-minute timeout, it will be penalized and the offense will be given the option to reset the game clock,

which won't start until the next snap. Coach to player helmet communication is allowed in FCS cool. Use of tablets extends to project large, to project, to project. large images only in the locker room at halftime or during a suspension of play. Okay, whatever. A player attempting to recover a loose ball is considered defenseless. I disagree with that. I mean, you're all defenseless, but you're going after the ball.

I like to know what weapons. It didn't specify all the weapons. It just said weapons. Don't brandish weapons. I'd like to know what all these weapons that you can't brandish are. Anyway, more to come.