BATON ROUGE, La. – The ongoing battle between LSU and the SEC reached a tipping point Thursday when the conference filed a federal lawsuit against the school over Lane Kiffin’s potential addition of players with NFL ties.
On Thursday, plaintiffs were granted a preliminary injunction by Judge William Jorden of the 19th District Court of Louisiana that allows them to be rostered by different schools for the upcoming season.
Because of this ruling, all eyes were on a Friday deadline in which schools are required to submit their rosters before their official season begins.
But, lost in the arguments around this deadline was an exemption the SEC enacted this past April that allows a team to add players to their roster if they are currently enrolled in classes as a full-time student.
According to multiple sources, LSU did not add Dae’Quan Wright or Zxavian Harris to its roster on Friday, but have the option to add them at a later time. This could come at any point over the course of the season, but would most likely happen sooner rather than later, if they do at all.
There was also a number of intense conversations had on Friday surrounding this situation, with the SEC hellbent on punishing LSU if they were to have added the players to their official roster.
What began as a lawsuit filed by members of the 2022 recruiting class seeking an additional season of eligibility has now escalated into a legal battle involving five different parties.
The dispute stems from the NCAA’s new “five-for-five” eligibility rule, which stipulates that athletes have five years to play five seasons of college sports.
Some of those athletes granted protection by the court included former Ole Miss football players Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris, who both told OutKick that they were under the impression that the Tigers would be adding them to the roster for the upcoming season.
This followed a highly contentious hearing that involved SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, who testified that any school in the conference that rostered players with professional ties would be violating newly created rules pertaining to the eligibility of those with NFL experience.
In a shocking turn of events that started just three minutes after Sankey took the stand, the SEC had already filed a federal lawsuit in a North Alabama court against LSU, Lane Kiffin and other school administrators for violating the SEC’s first amendment rights to enforce conference rules.
“We established our First Amendment right for freedom of association, so that our conference can make decisions and our members can make decisions about membership,” Sankey said under oath when asked about the SEC filing the lawsuit.
Now, with the conference making its stance clear, which came with SEC Presidents and Chancellors authorizing Sankey to enforce the rules with punishments that include a 50% suspension of the head coach, along with substantial fines to any school that violates the guidelines, it came down to the final hours on Friday.
This decision was not made by Lane Kiffin. Multiple sources told OutKick that school administrators, along with Governor Jeff Landry and President Wade Rousse were discussing the situation with LSU legal counsel throughout Thursday evening and all of Friday.
As the clock ticked on Friday, officials were still unsure as to what the Tigers football program would do as conversations between all parties involved continued.
Now, with court cases continuing to play out across the country, it will be interesting to see what other schools who were thinking of taking this route are going to do.
If LSU had added Wright and Harris to their roster and then taken them off down the road, attorney Ryan Downton told OutKick that he would have then returned to the same courthouse that was the epicenter of college football on Thursday to file a ‘contempt of court’ order against the Tigers.
But now, with LSU deciding to not add them to the official list for the Clemson game, everyone can take a deep breath and regroup.
Conversations around this matter will continue, while the SEC still has its lawsuit against LSU sitting in a federal court.
Now, we can focus on the upcoming slate of college football this weekend, while lawyers for all parties involved figure out what to do next.