Todd Graham, ASU's first-year head football coach, joins Matt this week to talk about the Sun Devils' season. They discuss the pressure to win early, why he loves recruiting, injury reports and how he expects his team to use Twitter.
Todd Graham
The idea of whether to report injuries, discuss them, or even ask about them has sparked a debate sorts within the sport this season.
How much should schools disclose about injuries? Should there be a uniform policy across conferences or the nation? How much can media be controlled in terms of access and information?
Unlike in the NFL, NCAA college football does not mandate any teams to disclose anything in regards to the health of their teams. Some conferences, like the ACC, have rules in place to disclose injuries on a weekly basis to the media, but a majority of the conferences have no official rule in place.
Arizona State’s new head coach, Todd Graham, is not necessarily in favor of a league-wide rule to release injury information.
“I’m very open with our reporters when a guy is out for the season, but I do think there’s privacy issues and there’s safety issues about not reporting injuries,” he told the 110 Sports Podcast.
Implementing something like NFL-style injury reports, which require teams to accurately portray a player’s health concerns and chances of playing, seems to be gaining little traction across the sport. A handful of Pac-12 and SEC coaches have opposed the idea all together.
There is some concern in regard to strict federal guidelines and issues revolving around disclosing medical records of a player that do present potential roadblocks in reform.
“This is not professional sports. This is collegiate sports,” Graham said. “These kids are student-athletes, and I think we should protect that stuff somewhat.
“If a kid has a beat-up shoulder and we have to disclose that, do you think people we are playing will not use that against him? I don’t think we should put kids in that situation.”
Arizona native Matt Minkus is the host of the 110 Sports Podcast, a show that pays homage to one of the most repeated cliches in sports: “Giving 110 percent.” Excerpts of new shows will be available at LindysSports.com every Wednesday.
