SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Injuries are a part of sports but there are times when teams that are in a disadvantageous situation will fake injuries to slow down the other team.

They are not easy to enforce from an official standpoint and they are a tool in a struggling team’s belt to slow down the opponent.

Some do a better job than others but there some whose acting skills need some work to make a fake injury look real.

Biggest flop of the year 🤣🤦🏻‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/sRLMIjyA5A — MaxPreps (@MaxPreps) October 27, 2018

The ones that are good at it have unique hand signals from the sideline and make it look like a leg cramp. The big question is – is it cheating or creating a loophole?

If a player is injured on the football field the clock has to stop and a trainer comes out to check on the fallen player. During that time it can give a team a chance to substitute or get a breather while facing a fast-paced offense. There is a 10-second run-off at the end of each half in college football to try to prevent faking injuries to gain an edge, and the NFL does the same within the two-minute warning.

The claim is that offenses are innovative and the defenses are severely at a disadvantage due to the spread offense, lack of substituting and hurry up. Offenses can just keep the same 11 players on the field and line up and not allow a defense to make changes.

So, defenses need to get creative and one of the laziest ways is to fake an injury, and they do that even if there is a run-off on the clock it can still be helpful for the team. However, there are other teams that are a bit more creative in preventing an uptempo offense from going full speed. One of those teams is the University of Utah.