SEC Ends Thursday Meeting With No Punishment for LSU or Lane Kiffin, But Anonymous Officials Push for a Suspension

Since LSU pulled back from rostering two former NFL players on September 4, the SEC has held its long-threatened membership meeting and come away with nothing official. No expulsion. No suspension. No fine. Just a statement.

The SEC's presidents and chancellors met Thursday, September 10, in Birmingham, Alabama, to decide whether to invoke Section 3.1.5 of the conference's Constitution and Bylaws and terminate LSU's membership, according to an amended federal lawsuit reported by Yahoo Sports' Qwame Skinner and ESPN's Pete Thamel. That vote never happened. The conference released a statement saying discussions about "conference expectations and responsibilities" would "continue," per Yahoo Sports.

How it got here

The dispute started after a Louisiana judge granted a preliminary injunction letting former Ole Miss players Dae'Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris, both of whom had signed NFL contracts, seek a fifth year of college eligibility under a recent NCAA rule change. Kiffin, now LSU's head coach after leaving Ole Miss, pursued adding both to his roster.

The SEC had already passed a rule barring players who signed pro contracts from returning to conference rosters, with penalties that could include a half-season head coach suspension and a fine equal to half a program's operating budget, according to Heavy.com's report on USA Today's Matt Hayes. LSU abstained from that vote.

LSU never actually rostered Wright or Harris. LSU President Wade Rousse wrote to commissioner Greg Sankey that he gave advance notice on September 4 that the school would not add either player, a decision confirmed that evening when LSU submitted its roster, according to Yahoo Sports. LSU filled its final two roster spots with other players on September 8, locking the roster for the season. Rousse's letter, quoted by Yahoo Sports, called the entire issue "moot."

That didn't stop the SEC from escalating anyway. The conference filed an amended federal lawsuit Tuesday, September 8, seeking explicit legal authority to expel LSU, according to reporting from The New York Times. The filing accused LSU of "lack of institutional control," using that phrase five times, and said the other 15 SEC presidents expressed "great concern" that Rousse and athletic director Verge Ausberry "have no meaningful control over Defendant Kiffin or the football program at LSU," per the Times.

The case for going easy, and the case against it

LSU's position, laid out in Rousse's letter, is straightforward: the school complied with the court order it was operating under, never put either player on the field, and finished the process before the SEC's own meeting even happened. By that read, there's nothing left to punish.

The counterargument, made by unnamed SEC administrators to USA Today's John Brice, Blake Toppmeyer, Cory Diaz and Matt Hayes, is that LSU pushed the fight to the brink of a federal lawsuit and a conference-expulsion vote before backing down, and that Kiffin's in-game comment during LSU's 51-10 rout of Clemson, telling ABC, "Imagine if we had pro players," with LSU leading 31-3, showed contempt for the process regardless of the outcome. The SEC cited that quote directly in its amended complaint, according to Heavy.com.

What punishment, if any, is actually on the table

With expulsion off the table for now, USA Today's reporting indicates individual SEC administrators are still pushing for consequences aimed specifically at Kiffin. One unnamed administrator pointed to the Big Ten's 2023 suspension of then-Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh, who missed his rivalry game against Ohio State as part of a sign-stealing penalty, as a template. The equivalent for Kiffin would be missing LSU's September 19 game at Ole Miss, his first game back at his former school. "I think that can be done," one source told USA Today. Another said bluntly, "I hope they'll suspend Lane. If not, he won't feel it and won't care."

Others favor a financial penalty tied to the fact that LSU pursued the rostering in the first place, regardless of outcome. Not everyone wants to go that far. "I am just glad they're not taking it further," one administrator told USA Today. "You could argue Lane should be suspended for two SEC games, but I ain't standing on the table for it."

Before Thursday's meeting, USA Today's Matt Hayes had predicted Kiffin would face a multi-game suspension and LSU a "massive fine," with a formal warning that any repeat would trigger expulsion, according to Heavy.com's report on his column. That prediction did not happen at Thursday's meeting. Tiger Rag's Glenn Guilbeau noted a tracked social media post counting the SEC's misses so far: no restraining order won in Birmingham, no expulsion vote, and no punishment announced Thursday, calling it three strikes for commissioner Greg Sankey.

Larry Brown Sports reported the SEC's concerns aren't limited to football. The conference is also watching LSU's basketball program under coach Will Wade, which has reportedly pursued similar tactics with less public attention because the season is still roughly two months out.

No formal discipline has been announced against Kiffin, LSU, or Rousse as of this writing. The clock is short if the SEC wants a suspension to actually cost Kiffin the Ole Miss game: that matchup is set for September 19, giving the conference roughly a week to decide whether talk turns into an actual penalty.