— By Bill Cornwell
The Sun Belt Conference announced this week it is joining the long list of athletic conferences to authorize member schools to release information on the health of football players in the days leading up to games.
The Sun Belt, of which Marshall is a member, said in a statement that it will also institute a review process when players are suspected of faking injuries.
League officials say the new policies are intended to promote and preserve the integrity of competition, with availability reports also protecting student-athletes and institutional staff from outside entities seeking to obtain inside information about availability.
The growth of sports gambling has caused conferences to make the injury information available to the public in an effort to prevent instances of inside information being used or withheld to influence betting on games.
The Sun Belt Conference will release a standardized availability prior to each conference game on its website (www.sunbeltsports.org) when a student-athlete’s ability to participate in an upcoming game is not certain. An initial availability report will be published three days prior to each conference game, with a game day update to be provided by 10:30 a.m.
Student-athletes will be designated as available, probable, questionable, doubtful or out on the mid-week availability report. They’ll be designated as available, game-time decision or out on the game day update.
As for questioning the injury of a player, Sun Belt officials say faking is dishonest, unsportsmanlike and contrary to the spirit of the rules.
A participating institution, the Sun Belt Conference or the Sun Belt Coordinator of Football Officials, will have the option to consult the national coordinator of football officials, who will facilitate a video review of a possible faked injury.
Failure to follow the availability and fake injury policies could lead to review and possible penalties for Sun Belt Conference members.
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Marshall women’s basketball will be welcoming a high-profile opponent to Huntington in mid-November.
Marshall announced Thursday that the Kentucky Wildcats will face the Herd at the Cam Henderson Center on Saturday, November 15. Tip-off is set for 1 p.m.
Marshall and Kentucky, located just two hours apart and are linked by Interstate 64, have met 20 previous times, with UK holding a 15-5 series advantage. The schools have played eight times in Huntington, with Marshall 3-5 in those contests.
The last time the Herd hosted the Wildcats was in the 2004-05 season in a “Jam the Cam” event that set a Marshall and Mid-American Conference women’s basketball attendance record at the time with 7,017 fans at the Henderson Center. Kentucky won that game, 73-55.
Kentucky is led by second-year head coach Kenny Brooks. Brooks has recent familiarity with Marshall albeit in a different system. He was the head coach at Virginia Tech when the Hokies defeated the Herd 92-49 in a 2024 opening-round NCAA Tournament matchup.