Back in May, in the wake of different sports betting scandals surfacing at Alabama, Iowa and Iowa State, I had a chance to speak with the president and founder of U.S. Integrity, Matt Holt, about the different violations we were seeing across college sports.
One of the country’s leading integrity monitors, U.S. Integrity played a part in flagging some of those violations, and though most of my conversation with Holt was focused on how that was accomplished, we also spoke about what could be done to limit suspicious activity before it happens.
One of the things he suggested was injury reports.
“I do think there’s some things that college sports could do to make itself a little bit safer and a little less vulnerable for the athletes, including mandated injury reporting like the pro leagues use,” Holt said.
That conversation came rushing back to mind Saturday when Air Force started quarterback Zac Larrier against Navy after head coach Troy Calhoun said earlier in the week Larrier would be out for a while. That lack of transparency obviously left some bettors upset because a quarterback change would have altered how they spent money on the game. It was allowed because injury reports aren’t mandated by the governing body of college sports.
The NCAA has made an effort to update its rules in the last few months to be more fitting in a world with legal sports betting, but Air Force’s odd decision brings to light why injury reports need to be included in future changes.
Hearing from a lot of bettors upset about this with Air Force.
In the legalized gambling world, all the integrity experts say you need injury reports.
Heck, just last month a former AF golf coach was penalized for betting on AF football in 2020. That information matters. https://t.co/R8QjCDpKVF
— Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) October 21, 2023
Now, to be clear, college sports don’t need injury reports to make bettors happy. There’s more at stake than simply appeasing a few people on social media.
Withholding injury information gives teams and coaches the power to manipulate betting lines. And while the pockets of public bettors can be the collateral damage of that manipulation, people on the team or in the know stand to benefit greatly from having inside information on injuries — at their own risk of course.
Alabama’s baseball coach was fired after scratching his starting pitcher prior to a scheduled start against LSU, then reportedly being caught communicating with a bettor who wagered on LSU to win. That entire scenario could have been prevented with mandated injury reports.
It doesn’t seem like there was much more than gamesmanship going on with Air Force. And it didn’t really work against Navy, which still covered the 11.5-point spread. Navy coach Brian Newberry said he figured Larrier would play. But the NCAA can’t assume no one will try to game the system in the future.
“Being out for awhile might mean, to (Calhoun), he’s out til Wednesday.”
— Mitchell Northam (@primetimeMitch) October 21, 2023
The Big Ten recognized this on a football level, and implemented its own injury reports this season. At some point, that needs to happen on a wider scale, or not having injury reports is going to backfire in a big way.
