Fansided

A broad, specific college football injury report may finally be coming

By Brad Berreman

INDIANAPOLIS, IN - DECEMBER 02: Tyquan Lewis #59 of the Ohio State Buckeyes celebrates following a win against the Wisconsin Badgers in the Big Ten Championship at Lucas Oil Stadium on December 2, 2017 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images)
INDIANAPOLIS, IN - DECEMBER 02: Tyquan Lewis #59 of the Ohio State Buckeyes celebrates following a win against the Wisconsin Badgers in the Big Ten Championship at Lucas Oil Stadium on December 2, 2017 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images) /
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It’s overdue, but college football is set to bring themselves up to the times with a broader injury report.

In this day and age, it’s not that difficult to find some sort of injury information for any of the major sports. But that doesn’t stop coaches from being secretive, so as not to offer an upcoming opponent any advantages. With legal gambling set to eventually hit all 50 states, a proposal for broad, specific and mandated reporting of injuries in college football is out there.

According to Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports, Big Ten athletic directors went before the NCAA Football Oversight Committee in June with a proposal for mandated weekly national injury reporting. The NFL has had that for a long time now, with fantasy football owners and gamblers taking particular interest.

Based on his comments, Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith seems to be leading the proposal.

"We have to be more transparent,” “In football, we’re going to kill this [idea of] gamesmanship around injuries.”“We don’t know if we want to report as many days as the NFL, but clearly on Mondays if somebody is injured from Saturday and you know they’re not going to play the following Saturday because they broke their leg, why not just say that?"

NFL teams have to offer at least three practice participation reports each week during the season, along with official game status reports on Friday (for Sunday games) and in-game injury updates for the benefit of the broadcast networks.

A hypothetical template for college football might be one mandated practice participation report each week, followed by official game status declarations due on Thursday ahead of Saturday games. Adjustments for Thursday night games, and occasional games on other nights, would be done on a situational basis with a deadline of around 24 hours prior to kickoff. Specific in-game injury updates would be an obvious part of the picture.

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There’s no stopping the concealment of injuries. But a strict reliance on coaches being forthright, and/or reporters having to offer informed speculation in the moment, is becoming hard to defend in college football. The NCAA has messed up a lot, but pushing greater injury transparency for their most financially valuable sport through a process has to be fool-proof.

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