LSU’s season opener is still on the calendar, but the real fight around Baton Rouge is happening in court.
Lane Kiffin said Monday that his team is focused on football, yet the legal mess tied to LSU has only grown more complicated. At the center of it is the eligibility of 2022 recruits who signed professional contracts this summer and then, in early August, received a fifth season of eligibility.
LSU got pulled into the dispute because it had commitments from former Cleveland Browns tight end Da’Quan Wright and New Orleans Saints defensive tackle Zxavian Harris, both of whom were on Kiffin’s Ole Miss team last season.
The SEC escalated its response last week with a unanimous vote - LSU included - to ban former professional players from being added to rosters. That set the stage for Thursday’s hearing in the Jack Pyburn et al. v. National Collegiate Athletic Association case, where the players amended their original lawsuit and challenged the SEC’s authority to punish LSU and determine the players’ eligibility.
While that hearing was underway, word came out that the SEC had filed its own federal lawsuit against LSU, naming LSU president Wade Rousse, athletic director Verge Ausberry and head coach Lane Kiffin as defendants.
The conference is seeking a court order to “enter a preliminary and permanent injunction prohibiting Defendants from violating the Conference’s First Amendment rights by compelling the Conference to associate with conduct that is contrary to the Conference’s purpose and mission.”
In its complaint, the SEC said LSU “waged a deliberate and coordinated campaign to recruit professional athletes to play football for LSU during the 2026-27 season, including players who had signed NFL contracts.”
That case was filed in federal court in Alabama’s Northern District, where Birmingham and the SEC headquarters are located. According to WAFB’s Friday afternoon report, the civil complaint came with federal summonses for Rousse, Ausberry and Kiffin.
For now, the SEC’s goal is straightforward: get a ruling that lets it enforce penalties against schools that add former professional players. Thursday’s court decision went LSU’s way, with the judge saying LSU is barred from taking action that would prevent the players from being rostered.
LSU also faces a deadline to submit its final 105-man roster to the College Sports Commission by midnight Friday, per NCAA bylaws. But there’s another SEC bylaw adopted in April that allows schools to add players later in the season, as long as roster spots are open and the players are enrolled at the university when the first game is played.
Kiffin said Monday that LSU does have open roster spots, which means the school does not have to add the players by Friday night if it wants to put them on the roster later, provided they are enrolled.
The next major step now hinges on the federal case the SEC filed against LSU. If that case is heard and the conference gets a favorable ruling, it would supersede Thursday’s state court decision. Only then, the judge ruled, could the SEC move forward with penalties it has so far been blocked from imposing.
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