SEC Says It Will Comply With Court Orders, Clearing Path for LSU to Sign Former NFL Players

Since the SEC passed its emergency ban on former pro athletes by a 16-0 vote on Tuesday, Aug. 25, and finalized the penalties for breaking it the next day, the rule has lasted less than a week before two different courts gutted it.

The Penalties, Briefly

The SEC's Aug. 26 memo, first detailed by CBS Sports and confirmed by On3, laid out what happens to any program that rosters a player who signed a pro contract, appeared on a pro roster, or declared for the NFL, NBA or WNBA draft without withdrawing. The head coach gets suspended for half the season. The school loses its SEC voting privileges on conference business. The fine is half of that sport's annual operating budget, according to Football Scoop. The SEC also reserved the right for Commissioner Greg Sankey, or the conference's presidents and chancellors, to pile on additional discipline.

The Big Ten passed a nearly identical rule the same day, unanimously, per USA Today. Notre Dame and the Big 12 have been reported as moving in the same direction, and Bleacher Report's coverage tracker flagged the ACC doing the same, though the final language out of each conference hasn't been nailed down publicly.

Two Courts, Two Rulings, One Week

On Wednesday, Aug. 26, a Dallas judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the SEC from penalizing schools that use players with NFL offseason or preseason experience, according to ESPN's Dan Murphy as reported by NBC Sports. Two days later, on Friday, Aug. 28, a Louisiana state judge signed a separate TRO doing the same thing, this time also ordering the SEC and NCAA to explain at a hearing scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 3, why the new penalties don't put them in contempt of an earlier ruling in the same case, according to Newsweek.

That earlier ruling is the one that started this whole mess: an Aug. 20 Louisiana TRO that cleared LSU tight end Dae'Quan Wright and defensive tackle Zxavian Harris (spelled Xzavian in some reports) to return for a fifth season of eligibility after both signed NFL contracts this offseason, Wright with the Cleveland Browns and Harris with the New Orleans Saints. That TRO traces back further still, to a July 31 federal ruling in Wisne v. NCAA out of Colorado, which granted the NCAA's 2022 recruiting class a fifth year of eligibility after the NCAA's new five-seasons-in-five-years rule failed to grandfather them in.

Louisiana attorney Tony Clayton, who represents players in the case, responded sharply after the rulings. "If Sankey shows up, I'd like to hear his argument," Clayton told ESPN, per NBC Sports. "What gives him the right to anoint himself God and take these constitutional rights from these kids?" Clayton put the blame for the underlying chaos on the NCAA itself. "They created this cluster, and now they've got to lay in that bed. If this were going to happen every year, they might be on to something. But this is a one-time deal that they opened up."

SEC Backs Down, LSU Moves Forward

Facing two adverse rulings in a single week, the SEC told its attorneys it will comply with the court orders and allow former pro athletes to sign with member schools, according to On3's reporting, which both Newsweek and Sports Illustrated cited. Sports Illustrated described it as the SEC "ending its battle with attorneys," a move that clears LSU to formally add Wright and Harris to its roster, though the outlet noted it's unlikely either player will be ready in time to suit up for LSU's season opener against Clemson.

LSU head coach Lane Kiffin, who coached both players at Ole Miss before they signed NFL contracts and got released, has walked a careful line publicly. "There's a lot of parts of this I don't like," Kiffin told Pat McAfee, according to USA Today. "I don't think professionals should come back to college sports and college football. But in this instance, these are not players who have gone on to play seasons professionally or randomly filed an injunction. This is part of a specific class that was ruled wrong by the NCAA that was supposed to be 5-for-5." He was blunter about the conference's own consistency to Football Scoop. "You can't decide, 'Hey, I like that injunction, I don't like that one.'"

The SEC's Actual Argument

The conference's own written rationale, sent to member schools and reported by USA Today, is straightforward: "Individuals who choose to leave college athletics, sign professional playing contracts, and compete professionally should not then be permitted to return to college competition. Allowing that to occur will blur the line between college and professional sports, create significant competitive equity concerns, and reduce opportunities for high school and current college athletes." That's a real concern for any school not named LSU trying to build a roster against a conference rival that just added two players with NFL training camp reps. It's also why the Big Ten moved on the identical day and why the ACC and Big 12 appear to be following.

What the courts have ruled on so far isn't whether that policy concern is legitimate. It's whether the SEC's enforcement mechanism violates due process and prior court orders covering a narrow, one-time class of players caught by the NCAA's own eligibility rule change. Those are separate questions, and only one of them gets answered at Thursday's show-cause hearing.

NBC Sports framed the losses as the SEC's problem, running the headline "SEC loses again in court" and adding that a genuine loss for the conference "counts as a partial win" if it builds momentum for the federal Protect College Sports Act. That's NBC's own inference about strategy, not something any SEC official has confirmed on the record. Whether Congress moves on that bill, and whether Wright and Harris ever actually take a snap for LSU this season, both remain open questions heading into next week's hearing.