A legal battle between the LSU Tigers athletic department and the Southeastern Conference continues to play out in the Northern District Court of Alabama, with an explosive filing on Tuesday evening.
If the SEC has its way, the case will linger until LSU acknowledges that it attempted to skirt the conference’s professionalism rules by recruiting — and potentially signing — athletes with professional experience in the NFL or NBA, or until LSU accepts some type of punishment without using a courtroom as a shield.
The ongoing saga between one of the SEC’s biggest schools and the conference it resides in has pushed both sides toward a war over the limits of what LSU is permitted to do under league rules.
Dating back to before the college football season started, multiple athletes at first sued the NCAA for an additional year of eligibility based off the new guidelines that were enacted over how many years an athlete can play collegiate sports.
When passed in June, the NCAA made it clear that while athletes would now have five years to play five seasons, they left out the 2022 class.
This has led to a plethora of lawsuits being filed across the country, as some judges are granting athletes an additional season based on the NCAA’s lack of grandfathering in the 2022 class, while the NCAA has been hellbent to fight each case presented in front of a local judge for consideration.
But after a Louisiana district court judge ruled that Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris were eligible to play this season following their professional football experience, the SEC and other conferences adopted a rule barring athletes with professional experience from returning to college sports.
This led to attorneys for the plaintiffs adding the SEC to the ongoing lawsuit in a Baton Rouge court, which ultimately saw commissioner Greg Sankey taking the witness stand for over five hours on that Thursday before LSU would take the field against Clemson.
It was not 20 minutes into his testimony that word started leaking from within the courtroom that the SEC had filed its own lawsuit against LSU, Lane Kiffin, President Wade Rousse and others within the Tigers administration for encroaching on their first amendment rights to govern themselves within the conference.
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If you were wondering why the SEC thought it would be best to file this type of lawsuit against a member institution, the conference is working under the impression that LSU would continue using the court system to maneuver around the enforcement of rules.
“That threat is not hypothetical. Defendants have already shown they will use Louisiana’s courts to stop the Conference from governing itself,” the SEC stated in a filing on Tuesday. “Working hand in glove with the Pyburn plaintiffs, they helped obtain state-court orders that bar the Conference from enforcing the Professionalism Rules.”
Just like a tale out of a John Grisham novel, the aftermath of that day in Baton Rouge has been nothing short of dramatic.
After Lane Kiffin and the Tigers made the decision to not roster both Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris, there were some who thought this lawsuit between the two sides would be dropped.
“LSU’s eleventh-hour decision not to include two former professional athletes on its football roster does not moot the SEC’s claims,” the conference said in a filing on Tuesday. “Nor does it matter that Defendants did not block or interfere with the September 10th meeting.”
But, the fight between LSU and the SEC was essentially just getting started, which also came after subtle threats from the conference to kick the Tigers out of the league.
In reality, this was not going to happen, but that hasn’t stopped the SEC from threatening punishment against the Tigers for continuing to recruit athletes with professional experience.
Late Tuesday night, in a response to the SEC’s response, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill called the SEC’s lawsuit “garbage”.
“The new response by SEC lawyers proves that the Commissioner was never acting in good faith,” AG Murrill said. “LSU has broken no rules, and the case is moot. The lawsuit was garbage from the start and should be dismissed.”
While some were paying attention to what Lane Kiffin was doing with the football program, the real fight was already starting with LSU basketball coach Will Wade.
Kiffin’s roster moves were never the real threat in this battle, but more so how the Tigers were putting together a roster for the upcoming basketball season.
Just a week ago, LSU technically had just four players on the current roster who were eligible, which came after former St. John’s star RJ Luis Jr. was granted an injunction to play college basketball this season, though he has not been added to the Tigers roster.
In their strategy to piece together a team, Will Wade has focused a majority of his time on players with professional experience, which was part of the SEC’s filing on Tuesday in opposition of LSU’s motion to dismiss.
“LSU has openly recruited former NBA player RJ Luis Jr., has allowed him to practice with LSU’s men’s basketball team, and has refused to publicly and definitively state that he will not be included on LSU’s basketball roster, which is not due for several more weeks,” the SEC’s motion stated.
For some minds, this strategy is of the same playbook that Lane Kiffin toyed with in the days leading up to LSU’s season opener against Clemson.
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On Tuesday, Will Wade mentioned that LSU would follow the orders set forth by the SEC.
“We’re going to follow all the SEC protocols with him,” Wade said Tuesday during SEC Media Days. “I think it’s been pretty clear what the SEC protocols are on all that. He didn’t travel with us to McNeese, and he hasn’t been rostered.”
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While this might please some, the official roster does not have to be submitted until one day before the first game of the regular season., and there are still a handful of players LSU awaits answers on who have some type of professional experience.
And, while there might not be any further movement from the football side of things, Will Wade and LSU administrators are still testing the limits of what is allowed by conference standards, at least according to the SEC.
“Defendants’ threatened interference with the SEC’s First Amendment freedoms is ongoing,” the SEC mentioned.
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Now, we wait on a judge in Alabama to rule on whether this case moves forward.
But remember, this was always about Will Wade, not Lane Kiffin’s football team.
