LSU’s push to potentially add former professional athletes comes with a warning label from the Southeastern Conference: if the Tigers put those players on the field, the fallout could be serious.
The SEC has already laid out penalties for schools that use athletes who signed professional contracts, appeared on professional rosters or otherwise run afoul of the conference’s professionalization rules. Those consequences could land on LSU’s football program, Lane Kiffin and the university itself.
Under the enforcement plan described by the SEC, a school that violates the rule could face discipline that includes a head coach suspension of up to half the season. That puts Kiffin directly in the crosshairs if LSU uses a player the conference says is ineligible under its rules.
The conference is also making a broader legal point in LSU’s court battle: it says it can punish SEC schools and athletics personnel on its own, separate from the NCAA. That matters because even if a judge allows a former professional athlete back into college football, the SEC argues it would still have the power to penalize an SEC program that plays that athlete.
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey pushed back on the idea that the conference suddenly created new rules. In a court filing Wednesday, he said the memos sent to schools last week were simply explaining how the SEC could use authority already built into its bylaws.
“No SEC President or Chancellor voted against the direction set forth in these two memoranda,” Sankey said in an affidavit.
LSU President Wade Rousse abstained from the vote.
There has also been talk of harsher outcomes beyond the penalties spelled out in the memos. Media reports have said SEC officials discussed game forfeitures and, in the most extreme version of that scenario, LSU being expelled from the conference.
Yahoo Sports reported that potential game boycotts were also part of the conversation. Expulsion has been described as extremely unlikely, and none of those possibilities have been imposed on LSU.
The issue returns to a Baton Rouge courtroom Thursday, where attorneys for the athletes are asking a judge to extend the court protections that are currently blocking the SEC from enforcing its rules against the plaintiffs. The SEC is seeking to have those protections removed.
Former Ole Miss players Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris are among the plaintiffs and have been linked to possible moves to LSU under Kiffin.
LSU opens the season against Clemson on Saturday in Baton Rouge.
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What makes it especially notable from LSU's perspective is the way it brushes up against Lane Kiffin, whose name has also been part of the conversation around the broader tension. Swinney has said he has not gotten a recent update, which leaves the matter unresolved for now and keeps the uncomfortable question hanging over one of the SEC's more high-profile programs. [Read more 🡒]