CHARLOTTE — NFL-style injury reports are coming to the Atlantic Coast Conference with league leaders saying the change is about protecting players.
Injury reports are required in the NFL with players typically carrying different designations such as doubtful or probable. But college coaches, seeking any advantage they can get, often keep quiet about the status of injured players.
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In an era of pervasive legal sports betting, including in North Carolina, that information is valuable. For conference games, the ACC will require football teams to submit an availability report two days before kickoff, one day before kickoff and two hours before a game begins. The reports will be available on the league’s website.
In men’s and women’s basketball and baseball, teams must submit an availability report one day before the game and again two hours before it starts.
“There's stresses on our student-athletes from individuals that are trying to garner information, and sometimes it's pretty innocent because they just want to know, they're a big fan, but other times it really does trickle and lead yourself to the gambling and sports wagering kind of path,” ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips said Tuesday at the league’s annual football preview event.
The Southeastern Conference implemented the same rule in the same sports in 2024. The Big Ten and the Mid-American Conference also have availability reports.
Legal sports betting in North Carolina launched in March 2024. Since then, gamblers in the state have bet nearly $9 billion in paid and promotional wagers through eight authorized sports betting operators.
SMU coach Rhett Lashlee said the coaches didn’t want to do it, but he said he doesn’t think it will be a negative.
“We don’t need to do it because one, it’s one more thing we have to do, and two, we’re all just going to say questionable or whatever,” Lashlee said. “I get it. I know why the NFL does it. I know why we’re trending that way in college. Our leadership thinks it’s good for our league, and we’re going to do it.”
Lashlee said he plans to tell the truth about availability on each day, but noted that the status of players is often up in the air.
“There are times you don’t know,” Lashlee said. “You literally don’t know until a guy goes through warmups and goes and plays the first play if he’s going to be able to play. That truly is a game-time decision and so we’ll adjust.”
Phillips said the league is working on a policy for coaches who provide incorrect information or don’t comply with the policy.
“Coaches are hard to change, but when we told them that we were doing it, no one said anything on the call. I don't know what that meant, other than they were accepting it,” Phillips said.
“It's the right thing. It's the right thing. I understand, and every coach has to do what they have to do in order to get their team ready, and there's always gamesmanship, always. That's been around for a hundred years, and it's going to continue, but it's the right thing.”
The athletic departments at UNC System schools, outside of ACC members North Carolina and NC State, receive a portion of tax revenue collected by the state from the sports betting operators. Both the state House and Senate added UNC and NC State to the distribution in their budget proposals, though the chambers disagreed on the formula. The ACC schools would collect much more under the Senate’s plan.
The two chambers have yet to pass a budget, so the current distribution formula — the one that excludes UNC and NC State — remains in law.
“Investment in higher education and athletics, I am for, I just am,” Phillips said. “Every state has to do what they think is right, but I commend the state of North Carolina for looking at it in that way and trying to support those two institutions.”