Injury Reports May Be Coming To College Football; Why That's A Bigger Deal Than It Seems

When I was covering Kansas as a cub reporter years ago, Mark Mangino would occasionally be pressed by one of the local newspaper reporters about why he wouldn’t provide an injury report. Like most college coaches, Mangino liked to keep maximum secrecy regarding injuries, and on those occasions he’d be challenged on the point, he’d say that the only people who needed that information were opponents and gamblers.

But such policies have another effect that I’m not so sure is unintended: They allow coaches to play injured players without scrutiny or accountability. Players, generally, are forbidden from publicly discussing their own injuries, and so find themselves in a badly leveraged position. As one example, I knew of a linebacker who had a bad year, got criticized by the coach and the press all year, then finally got fed up the next year and revealed he’d been playing on a knee that required surgery.

Those days may be coming to an end, however, as the Big Ten commissioners have proposed a national injury report for college football, and it’s all because of legalized gambling.

From CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd:

"The Big Ten has asked the NCAA to consider developing a national college football injury reporting system in reaction to the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that allows states to legalize sports gambling. The conference’s athletic directors proposed to the NCAA Football Oversight Committee in June what would be a first-ever weekly national injury reporting mandate. The ADs claim an injury report is necessary to protect the integrity of the sport. "

There is a fair bit to work out on this, including how often to report injuries, how to describe them, how to deal with health privacy laws, and so forth. Then there’s convincing the other conferences this is a good idea, and handling the pushback from coaches.

"“Whatever weaknesses or vulnerabilities that we have as a team, I can’t possibly fathom why I would have any interest in revealing that to my opponent,” Washington State coach Mike Leach told USA Today in January."

That’s an understandable perspective coming from Mike Leach. But this, frankly, is not an issue on which coaches’ opinions are going to be given top weight.

There is too much at stake for that. There is too much money to be made on gambling, and it’s too important for games to be seen by the public as on the up and up for us all to be concerned about what Mike Leach does and doesn’t want to tell his opponent.

Legalizing sports gambling made an underground world transparent, and as an unintended consequence, it’s doing the same for world of injured college football players.