Wake Forest football coach Dave Clawson says NCAA should review rules on fake slides following TD by Pitt QB Kenny Pickett

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Wake Forest football coach Dave Clawson said the NCAA needs to review its rules on whether quarterbacks should be allowed to “fake slide” after escaping the pocket.

Clawson’s statement came after his team’s 45-21 loss to Pittsburgh in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game Saturday night in which Panthers quarterback Kenny Pickett used a fake slide to freeze defenders and run for a 58-yard touchdown on the game’s first possession.

After Pickett broke containment on a third-down run, he briefly stutter-stepped and pretended to slide after picking up the first down. Two Wake Forest defenders froze, figuring Pickett was giving himself up. Instead, Pickett made a quick cut and raced another 40 yards for a touchdown before blowing kisses to the crowd in the end zone.

While Clawson acknowledged after the game there is no rule preventing Pickett from doing what he did, he said the NCAA should consider such a rule.

“If that is the rule, I will just have my guy fake knee all the way down the field, and really, what do you do?” Clawson said. “So it’s something the NCAA is going to have to look at, and you know, you can’t fake a slide.”

Clawson said he had previously never seen a play in which a quarterback pretended to give himself up, only to keep running.

“You just train your players, as soon as your quarterback starts sliding, you stop because if you touch him it’s going to be a penalty,” Clawson said. “He started his slide and our kids stopped playing. I don’t think he did it intentionally, but if he did, he’s brilliant. I just think he reacted as an athlete. But what do you tell your players? The quarterback is protected, and there are two guys there who could have made a play but stopped playing because he started to slide.”

Pickett admitted after the game that he did do it on purpose.

“Yeah,…