Larry Scott considers injury report

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STANFORD, Calif. -- After a controversy-filled week, Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said Saturday he is looking into the possibility of a conference-wide injury report to unify the league's teams and eliminate disclosure issues.

On Tuesday, USC banned a local reporter from practice for two weeks for reporting on an injury to kicker Andre Heidari. The Trojans enacted a policy in August prohibiting media members from discussing injuries that are suffered in practice.

Washington coach Steve Sarkisian then announced on Wednesday he and his players would no longer discuss injuries, citing a competitive disadvantage.

Oregon and Utah enforce similar policies.

"Normally, each school sets their own policy, and there hadn't been any issues (before this week), to my knowledge," Scott said, speaking during halftime of Saturday's USC-Stanford game at Stanford Stadium. "We have an athletic director meeting coming up in October and I'm going to put this on the agenda, at least to discuss as to whether we ought to leave it with each school or whether there ought to be some standards or some conference policy."

Told that a similar system seems to work fairly well in the NFL, where teams are required to describe all their injured players' status before each game, Scott nodded.

"We've got some folks that worked for the NFL at the conference office, so we'll have that discussion," Scott said.

USC coach Lane Kiffin reinstated the reporter the day after the ban and said he apologized "if that was taken the wrong way."

He then said he and his staff would be looking into a way to allow reporters to disclose injuries without giving USC a competitive disadvantage.

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