CFP Backs Conferences' Ban on NFL Players Returning to College — SkimNews
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- The College Football Playoff issued a statement "strongly supporting" individual conference rules that prohibit athletes with professional draft, contract, or roster ties from returning to college teams, though it stopped short of implementing any new CFP-level rules.
- The CFP's management committee — the 10 FBS commissioners plus Notre Dame AD Pete Bevacqua — held a second videoconference this week, first taking up the eligibility question at a June Denver meeting after a judge ruled former Texas Tech QB Brendan Sorsby eligible despite admitting to gambling on his former team, Indiana.
- A Baton Rouge judge ruled Thursday that Dae'Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris are cleared to return to college football after brief NFL stints; the former Ole Miss players plan to join Lane Kiffin at LSU for his debut Saturday night against Clemson.
- Wright and Harris are among 42 athletes — including former Notre Dame pass rusher Junior Tuihalamaka — who have sued the NCAA in Louisiana to play a fifth and final college season.
- The Big Ten, SEC, ACC, and Big 12 each issued independent statements opposing NFL-to-college returns; the SEC gave commissioner Greg Sankey full enforcement authority "with penalties" and extended its ban to professional basketball, while the Big 12 unanimously became the first conference to bar professionals from returning across all sports.
Why it matters: The CFP's endorsement gives the Big Ten, SEC, ACC, and Big 12 unified institutional cover to enforce their bans with penalties (per the SEC's explicit language) against the 42 athletes currently suing in Louisiana — a group that just added two court-sanctioned players to Lane Kiffin's LSU roster hours before kickoff against Clemson.
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