A Baton Rouge judge ruled late Thursday in favor of a final year of competition for athletes who had taken steps to begin professional careers this offseason prior to the NCAA’s overhaul of its eligibility system.
Will Jorden granted in his 19th Judicial District Courtroom a preliminary injunction that prohibits the NCAA and SEC from punishing any school that signs and plays the 42 athletes who filed the lawsuit in Louisiana, including former Ole Miss and prospective LSU football players Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris.
“It’s not about coach (Lane Kiffin), it’s not about LSU — it’s about treating these kids fairly,” West Baton Rouge Parish district attorney Tony Clayton, representing the players’ case, told reporters. “It’s about the fair application. If you’re gonna apply the rules, apply them fairly to everyone. So today justice was served, and justice was served to the SEC. It was served like a cold cup of gumbo, and that judge forced them to eat it.”
The decision marked a major win for athletes in their ongoing legal battle and the latest, but not last development in the process that appears poised to only further escalate as the SEC additionally filed suit Thursday against LSU in a U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Ala.
LSU and Kiffin now have to decide whether to add Wright, Harris and potentially others to their roster prior to Friday’s deadline before kicking off the season Saturday against Clemson despite their conference’s clear dispute with and attempts to stop them doing so.
“LSU respects the judicial process and the court’s decision,” university president Wade Rousse said. “Our responsibility is to support our programs while complying with the law and the rules governing our conference. We will carefully review the court’s order and continue to work constructively with the SEC and NCAA as this matter moves forward. College football does not deserve this kind of ambiguity in eligibility standards. This is just another illustration that Congress needs to pass a version of the Protect College Sports Act.”
[ READ MORE: SEC SUES LSU AS PLAYER ELIGIBILITY BATTLE CONTINUES ]
The SEC’s suit against LSU, its board of supervisors, athletic director Verge Ausberry, Rousse and Kiffin was filed early Thursday morning and reported by the Associated Press as conference commissioner Greg Sankey was testifying at the hearing in Baton Rouge.
“The SEC has endured and thrived for nearly a century because its members have adhered to that common set of rules, which each member institution, and every coach at those institutions, has agreed to follow,” the federal lawsuit said, according to an ESPN report. “Among the most fundamental of those rules are the longstanding provisions that prohibit individuals who have entered a professional draft, signed professional contracts or been rostered on a professional athletics team from returning to compete in college athletics (the ‘Professionalism Rules’).”
The NCAA overhauled its eligibility system this summer, moving from a longtime system allowing only four years of eligibility outside of certain exceptions and waivers to instead a new “five-for-five” format in which student-athletes enrolling in college no later than the academic year after their 19th birthday would be eligible to participate in up to five years of competition during the next five years.
A series of lawsuits against the NCAA have followed around the country challenging that the athletes who graduated high school in the 2022 class and had expired their eligibility under the previous system and moved on to fringe professional opportunities as a result should still be able to return to the college game for another year.
Jorden granted a temporary restraining order Aug. 18 and heard the case Thursday as more than 40 players, headlined by Wright and Harris, sought a preliminary injunction in their continued push back toward college competition.
While the issue is nationwide with dozens of cases in several states and spanning multiple sports, the often-controversial and outspoken Kiffin and the Tigers have become the lightning-rod face of the process as the coach has embraced the opportunity to improve the roster.
The SEC voted last Tuesday, Aug. 25, to ban athletes participating in the league after having declared for the NFL, NBA or WNBA draft and no appropriately withdrawn, signed a contract with the leagues or affiliates or been listed on the leagues’ (or affiliate leagues’) rosters.
[ READ: JUDGE FINDS MOST PLAINTIFFS DO NOT HAVE CLAIM AGAINST SEC ]
The following day, potential penalties were announced that included a suspension of up to half the season for a program’s head coach, a fine up to as much as 50% of the sport’s annual operating budget, a loss of voting privilege on SEC matters and additional sanctions imposed by Sankey.
The conference was added to the players’ lawsuit as a result, which prompted Sankey’s trip to Baton Rouge on Thursday.
Jorden ruled in the players’ favor, but issue as a whole and the tension around it only continue to build.
