Will SEC whack Lane Kiffin for injury-report shenanigans?

The age of bet! bet! bet! has forced college conferences to implement injury reports. But, of course, college coaches are going to do college-coach things.

This week, LSU’s Lane Kiffin played an apparent game with the requirement that multiple reports be issued. Quarterback Sam Leavitt went from “doubtful” on Wednesday to “questionable” on Thursday to off the injury report on Friday night.

And while the College GameDay desk yukked it up about Lane being Lane, there’s a difference between one coach playing games with the other coach and deliberate falsehoods being perpetrated on the betting public. How many people put money on Ole Miss by taking “doubtful” to mean for LSU what “doubtful” usually means when used in the NFL context?

The next question is whether the SEC will shrug at the apparent shenanigans. By rule, fines for inaccurate reports range from $25,000 to $100,000.

Violations of the injury-reporting rules typically come from programs failing to properly disclose actual injuries. In this case, Lane may have lied about Leavitt in order to force Ole Miss to spend time preparing for Leavitt’s understudy.