The SEC is “moving toward” implementing mandatory college football injury reporting across the conference in 2024, according to a report from CBS Sports. The Big Ten implemented the measure last season.
Conferences are beginning to implement mandatory injury reports largely due to the boom of sports betting in the U.S. Some coaches have complained that players and other staff are asked by gamblers for inside information related to player availability. With official injury reports, those questions could be reduced and theoretically improve game integrity.
Last year, Alabama baseball head coach Brad Bohannon was fired for sharing inside injury information with an Ohio sports bettor. The Ohio bettor received a prison sentence for the illegal activity.
NFL teams are required to post injury reports, but the NCAA doesn’t mandate injury reporting. That leaves conferences to determine if they’d like to implement the reports.
The Big Ten required programs to share player availability reports on game days in 2023, at least two hours before kickoff. Teams listed players as either officially “out” of the game or “questionable” for the game. The Big Ten’s requirements for injury reports are far less stringent than the NFL, which gives multiple updates during a week on player availability.
It’s unclear exactly what injury reporting format the SEC might adopt entering 2024. LSU and Florida released regular injury reports last season, but the rest of the conference did not.
Will Other Conferences Follow? 5q4c1j
As of Aug. 9, it doesn’t look like other major conferences will implement injury reports for the 2024 college football season.
The ACC and Big 12, the two other Power Four conferences in addition to the Big Ten and SEC, both told Sports Handle they won’t have mandatory injury reporting in 2024.
The AAC, one of the top Group of Five leagues, doesn’t plan to implement mandatory injury reports this fall. CUSA doesn’t plan to either, but the league might in 2025.
“We have taken some straw polls on it but, after speaking with the Big Ten myself and discovering the governance structure they have for it, we felt like it was a topic best suited for their next coaches meeting,” Josh Yonis, CUSA’s assistant commissioner of strategic communications, told Sports Handle. “We are hoping to have something in place for 2025.”
Sports Handle reached out to other Group of Five conferences in addition to CUSA, but didn’t hear back from the MAC, Mountain West, or Sun Belt prior to the time of publication. None of those Group of Five conferences had injury reports last season.
