Daniels' lawyer sends cease-and-desist to LSU over No. 5 jersey
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- Jayden Daniels' attorney Adam Kenner sent a cease-and-desist letter to LSU athletics director Verge Ausberry on Aug. 5, ordering the school to immediately stop using Daniels' NIL in any form and warning that any further use would be pursued 'through all available legal and equitable remedies.'
- LSU allowed sophomore cornerback DJ Pickett to wear No. 5 during preseason practice — the first player to wear the number since Daniels won the Tigers' third Heisman Trophy in 2023 — and Pickett was seen in the jersey at last week's opening of camp under first-year coach Lane Kiffin.
- Lane Kiffin told reporters Aug. 5 that Pickett was promised No. 5 during his December 2024 signing — when he was the No. 2 cornerback in the Class of 2025 — and that honoring a recruiting commitment left him no real choice: 'I'm not going to judge something [that was done] when I wasn't here.'
- Former LSU coach Brian Kelly, fired Oct. 26, 2025, told ESPN he also believed No. 5 had been promised to Pickett but withheld the jersey because Daniels wasn't on board, explicitly drawing the parallel to Joe Burrow's No. 9, which has gone unworn since Burrow's 2019 national championship season.
- LSU's written policy states that jerseys retired after Jan. 1, 2007, 'does not preclude a current student-athlete in that sport from wearing the jersey number in that or any other sport, subject to the discretion of the head coach' — and only Billy Cannon's No. 20 is permanently off-limits in football.
- The cease-and-desist letter cites Daniels' LSU NIL contract, which permitted the school to use his name, image and likeness for 180 days beyond his final college game — a window the letter argues has now expired.
Why it matters: The cease-and-desist transforms a symbolic jersey-number dispute into a legal fight over post-college NIL rights. Because Daniels' lawyer is leveraging the 180-day NIL-use clause in his LSU contract, the school faces a binary: restore the number (which Kiffin says would break a promise to Pickett) or lose the ability to market its own Heisman-winning alumnus — a precedent that could reshape how universities weigh retired-number requests against active-player commitments.
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