The Big Ten and SEC are the premier college football conferences, and the SEC may follow in the Big Ten’s footprints by implementing mandatory league-wide injury reporting.

If the SEC decides to implement injury reporting, it won’t come at the request of the NCAA. The NCAA plans to leave mandates related to injury reporting to individual conferences, at least in the immediate future.

“It appears to be a topic of discussion at the conference level; however, currently, it is not on the agenda for any of the [NCAA] sport oversight committees,” an NCAA spokesperson told Sports Handle.

The Big Ten began reporting official injury status two hours prior to kickoff last season, in large part due to sports betting. In theory, injury reporting can reduce the number of bettors reaching out to players, coaches, trainers, and other staff members for inside information related to player availability.

Former Alabama baseball head coach Brad Bohannon was fired in 2023 and faced severe NCAA disciplinary action for providing an Ohio bettor with insider information related to player availability. The Big Ten implemented injury reporting for football shortly following that scandal.

“The well-being of our students, coaches, and staff, as well as the integrity of our competitions are of paramount importance,” Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti said in a 2023 release. “Enhanced transparency through availability reporting and partnering with U.S. Integrity strengthens our efforts to protect those who participate in our games as well as the integrity of the games themselves.”

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey told the media last week that his conference will consider using injury reports in 2024. Georgia head coach Kirby Smart shared his support for the idea.

“If it helps with gambling, then I’m all for it,” Smart told USA Today. “If it’s geared to getting knowledge out there that people are trying to get from our student-athletes and it protects them, I’m certainly for that.”

Sports Handle reached out to ACC and Big 12 officials about whether those two conferences would consider official injury reporting in 2024, but didn’t immediately hear back. Neither major conference mandated injury reports in 2023.

While the logic of injury reporting to reduce sports betting integrity concerns makes sense on the surface, the Big Ten’s model might not be a perfect solution. The Big Ten only offered injury updates two hours before kickoff in 2023.

With the Big Ten’s model, there’s still significant value to knowing a player’s status earlier in the week. For example, if a bettor learns from an inside source on Thursday that Ohio State’s starting quarterback will miss Saturday’s game against Michigan, they can use that knowledge to place a large wager on the Wolverines. It’s possible other bettors won’t have access to that information until two hours before Saturday’s kickoff, via the official injury report.

That’s especially true for games between two lower-tier teams. It’s possible, if not likely, a starter’s injury status for a Michigan-Ohio State game would come out through media reports before an official injury report.

Would the same be true for Rutgers-Minnesota, which features much less media coverage and general interest? It’s possible that bettors with an inside source at Rutgers could leverage player availability knowledge into a significant wagering edge.

LSU, a member of the SEC, used injury reports last season despite not being required to do so. Head coach Brian Kelly shared updates on Mondays and Thursdays, perhaps a better solution than the Big Ten’s 2023 injury reporting model.

The NFL requires multiple injury updates throughout each team’s game weeks.