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Dawgs, Tide mum about concussions, AJC survey finds

January 1, 2018 Pasadena: Georgia defensive end Jonathan Ledbetter flatens Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield during the second half in the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Rose Bowl Game on Monday, January 1, 2018, in Pasadena. Curtis Compton/ccompton@ajc.com
January 1, 2018 Pasadena: Georgia defensive end Jonathan Ledbetter flatens Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield during the second half in the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Rose Bowl Game on Monday, January 1, 2018, in Pasadena. Curtis Compton/ccompton@ajc.com
By and
Jan 4, 2018

Oddsmakers and fans alike can parse reams of statistics for Monday’s football championship between the University of Georgia Bulldogs and the Alabama Crimson Tide.

But one on-the-field stat that neither team has revealed is the number of concussions sustained by its student athletes.

The AJC sought concussion data from 62 Division I, II and III and found that about 1 in 6 athletic programs do not count student-athlete concussions by sport, even though such data collection could lead to better safety protocols for their athletes.

UGA said they kept concussion numbers for a time as part of a grant proposal, but stopped five years ago. Alabama said they kept the data — but declined to release it.

Read more about concussions in college athletics, and the steps some schools are taking to minimize concussion-related injuries on myAJC.com.

About the Authors

Willoughby Mariano is an investigative reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where she focuses on housing and criminal justice issues. She previously worked for the AJC's PolitiFact Georgia, where she fact checked the claims of elected officials, and at the Orlando Sentinel, where she covered crime and breaking news.

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Jennifer Peebles is a newsroom data specialist at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, helping reporters find and tell stories with government data (and sometimes documents, too).

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