CFP backs conferences' bans on NFL players returning — SkimNews
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- College Football Playoff stopped short of new rules but issued a statement "strongly supporting" existing conference policies that block athletes with professional draft, contract, or roster ties from returning to college football.
- CFP's management committee — the 10 FBS commissioners plus Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua — held its second videoconference this week after first taking up the eligibility issue at a June Denver meeting prompted by a ruling in former Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby's gambling case.
- A Baton Rouge judge ruled Thursday that Dae'Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris, both former Ole Miss players, are cleared to return to college football after brief NFL stints, and both said they intend to join Lane Kiffin at LSU, which opens Saturday night against Clemson.
- Wright and Harris are among 42 athletes — including former Notre Dame pass rusher Junior Tuihalamaka, also heading to LSU — who have sued the NCAA in Louisiana seeking to play a fifth and final season now permitted for later classes.
- In late August the SEC reaffirmed its conference rule and gave commissioner Greg Sankey full enforcement authority "with penalties," extending the ban to include athletes who previously declared for professional basketball.
- The Big 12 became the first conference to bar professionals from returning in all sports, while the ACC limited its scope to the NFL and professional basketball — collectively, the Big Ten, SEC, ACC, and Big 12 all oppose NFL-to-college returns.
- The CFP cited "ongoing legal proceedings" in declining further comment, framing the conference rules as protecting "the needs, interests and integrity of the sport."
Why it matters: With a Louisiana judge clearing two former Ole Miss players to return to LSU this Saturday and 42 athletes actively suing the NCAA, the CFP's endorsement gives the four power conferences unified political cover to enforce bans — meaning any school or athlete who defies the rule now risks penalties from Sankey's SEC or the Big 12, not just eligibility disputes.
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