Judge Clears Former NFL Players to Return to LSU — SkimNews
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- Judge William Jorden approved a preliminary injunction Thursday barring the NCAA and SEC from punishing schools that field former professional athletes, ruling in favor of Wright and Harris and 42 other athletes suing in Louisiana to play a fifth college season.
- Wright and Harris, both former Ole Miss players under Lane Kiffin, said they intend to join Kiffin at LSU for his debut season; Wright said he has had two days of practice and plans to play Saturday against Clemson, while Harris said he needs two weeks and is targeting the Sept. 19 Ole Miss game.
- The SEC announced it will appeal immediately, and separately filed a federal lawsuit in Alabama Thursday morning seeking authority to enforce new sanctions against schools that add former pro players — punishments that would suspend a coach for half the season and fine schools tens of millions of dollars.
- Every SEC school except LSU voted to approve those sanctions last week, commissioner Greg Sankey told the court Thursday, prompting Jorden to observe from the bench that the conference's actions 'sounds an awful lot like wide-open collusion.'
- LSU president Wade Rousse said the school is reviewing the order and urged Congress to pass the Protect College Sports Act, adding that 'college football does not deserve this kind of ambiguity in eligibility standards.'
- Clemson coach Dabo Swinney told reporters the situation is 'embarrassing' and 'a joke,' saying 'there are zero rules, and when you enforce rules, someone just goes and finds a judge that says, no, you can't enforce that.'
- The underlying eligibility shift came in June when the NCAA moved from a four-seasons-in-five-years rule to five-in-five, creating outgoing seniors who exhausted eligibility under the old system and filed lawsuits arguing they were illegally denied a final season.
Why it matters: With the SEC filing a parallel federal lawsuit and LSU facing a Saturday deadline to finalize its roster under conflicting court orders, the conference's ability to enforce its own governance is now on trial alongside the players — a verdict that will determine whether conferences or state courts set eligibility rules in college sports.
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