Louisiana State University head football coach Brian Kelly is looking to the NFL for the answer to college football’s growing sports betting problem. Late last week Kelly announced that the LSU Tigers will be updating its injury report in an effort to help protect players from outside influences.
Kelly’s new policy is basically the same injury report policy that the NFL has used for years. The LSU report will be issued twice a week, with the final report coming on Saturday (which is game day for college football in the US).
“I thought it was important given the nature of what’s going on today out there relative to reporting and gaming. We wanted to make sure that we were transparent with injuries, not putting any pressure on anybody here to guess who’s in, who’s out for a given game,” Kelly said in comments reported on by ESPN.com.
Under Kelly’s guidance, the LSU Tigers football program is also getting proactive on the issue of players betting on games and, even worse, placing those bets from an LSU football facility saying, “”There shouldn’t be any of those (apps) on any of our players’ phones or anyone in this building.”
When looking at the bigger picture, Kelly says that the injury report will help protect players from being approached by gamblers looking for information. He also added that making that information public doesn’t really have much impact on the team anyways. “I can’t tell you how many times we didn’t know a particular quarterback was playing. You’ve got to adjust on the fly. So, I think it’s much ado about nothing, and I think we angst over the littlest things that don’t really affect the game and make too much of it.”
LSU has, so far, been spared the kind of scandal that’s currently burning through the Iowa State football program. Kelly is hoping that reforms like the injury report will help it stay that way.