Brian Kelly calls hiding injury status of players overrated

LSU head coach Brian Kelly dusted off a bit of an unorthodox opinion among college football coaches this week with his decision to have the Tigers release NFL-style injury reports throughout the season. Kelly was comfortable doing this, in part, because he finds it “overrated” to try and get a tactical advantage from some injury subterfuge.

Kelly, who has been a college head coach for more than three decades, said he just doesn’t think that much can be gained from it. It’s certainly never been something he’s focused on during game planning and prep.

“I’ve been doing it for so long, 33 years, I don’t know that I’ve ever went into a game and gone, ‘Whoa, we’ve got an upper hand today. I didn’t know he was playing.’ Or ‘I did know he was playing.’ I just think it’s overrated. I think you’re preparing during the week for what you expect. I mean I can’t tell you how many times that we didn’t know a particular quarterback was playing and the other guy — you’ve gotta adjust on the fly. So I think it’s much ado about nothing,” Kelly said.

College football coaches, as a class, are often known for their paranoia about information getting out from their program, be it injuries, a depth chart shift or a player joining or leaving the team.

Sweating all these minuscule issues isn’t going to lead to more wins, Kelly said.

And as gambling and other forces drive college sports to a more professional place, Kelly is conscious of the pressures being put on his coaches and players. He alluded in his press conference on Thursday to not wanting pressures related to gambling impacting players who are injured and the like.

He’d rather set out a proactive measure to protect his players and coaches, while not sacrificing as much as other coaches might make it seem.

“And I think we angst over the littlest things that don’t really affect the game. And we make too much of it. I don’t want it to be a situation where it causes something to the point where somebody loses their job or somebody loses eligibility,” Kelly said. “To me that’s a bigger issue than, ‘Well, we’ve got a tactical advantage today because we found out he was playing.’

“I mean it’s — I’m not going to say it’s silly. But let’s have a protocol, here’s the procedure, here’s what I’m going to follow, here’s what we’re going to do. And it probably took me too long to come to this realization as well.”