BATON ROUGE, La. — The Southeastern Conference’s efforts to bar former NFL training camp participants from college rosters have hit a major legal roadblock, prompting the league to escalate its battle to a federal court in Alabama.
With a Friday night deadline looming for SEC schools to finalize their rosters for the upcoming season, the conference filed a federal lawsuit against LSU, its head coach, athletic director, and university president. The move follows a significant setback in Louisiana state court, where an East Baton Rouge Parish judge issued a preliminary injunction Thursday night that blocks the SEC and the NCAA from punishing schools that field these players.
At the heart of the dispute are two players, Zxavian Harris and Dae’Quan Wright, who spent time with NFL teams this summer and now seek to join LSU’s roster. The SEC, along with the ACC, Big Ten, and Big 12, recently enacted rules prohibiting players with professional experience from returning to the college game. The conference argues these “Professionalism Rules” are essential to maintaining the distinction between amateur and pro sports and ensuring competitive fairness.
“Defendants have continued their campaign to engage in willful efforts to recruit and soon roster professional athletes in direct defiance of the Professionalism Rules,” the SEC stated in its federal complaint. The league contends that being forced to associate with athletes who violate these internal policies violates its First Amendment rights.
The legal chaos stems from a broader, muddled eligibility landscape. After the NCAA granted players five seasons of eligibility but excluded those who graduated high school in 2022, a wave of litigation ensued. When players like Harris and Wright attempted to return to campus after brief stints in the NFL, the SEC moved to enforce its ban, viewing the move as a threat to the integrity of college athletics.
LSU President Wade Rousse responded to the latest filing with a call for clarity. “College football does not deserve this kind of ambiguity in eligibility standards,” Rousse said, noting that LSU intends to comply with the law while supporting its programs.
The situation has drawn sharp criticism from state officials. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill dismissed the SEC’s federal filing as “legal garbage,” while Governor Jeff Landry took to social media to defend the players. Landry argued that the athletes were pushed toward professional opportunities only after the NCAA initially signaled their college careers were over. “They are college players who were told… that they were done,” Landry wrote. “So they took the only door that was open, only to watch the NCAA change the lock behind them.”
As the legal battle moves to the federal level, the 11th-ranked Tigers are currently scheduled to open their season Saturday against Clemson, with the status of Harris and Wright hanging in the balance of a pending court order.
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