LSU's President Asks the SEC to End the Lawsuit

A three-judge panel in Baton Rouge ruled Monday, in just four words: stay denied, writ denied.

That order came from Louisiana's First Circuit Court of Appeal, rejecting the SEC's bid to pause a state judge's eligibility ruling in case number 2026 CW 1195. The dispute is over which college players can keep signing NFL contracts and still play SEC football, and it has already produced a federal lawsuit and an unused threat to expel LSU from the conference. This desk covered the presidents' meeting that ended without a vote on September 10, under the headline "The SEC Met, Talked About LSU, and Went Home Without a Vote."

The appeals panel, in an order signed by judges Penzato, Lanier and Fields, found the SEC had not shown the district court abused its discretion. That leaves Judge Will Jorden's preliminary injunction fully in place while the underlying case continues.

Four days before that ruling, LSU System President Wade Rousse had already tried a different approach. WAFB reported this week that Rousse emailed Commissioner Greg Sankey at 8:08 a.m. on September 10, ahead of that day's SEC meeting, and told him directly: "I believe the quickest path forward is to resolve the federal litigation."

He followed it with a second email to nearly every other SEC president and chancellor, telling them LSU's absence from the meeting should not be read as the university stepping away from the conference.

LSU's own lawyers had advised against attending. Several LSU employees are named individually as defendants in the SEC's federal suit, and the university had not been sent a revised agenda for the meeting.

The NFL, separately, closed a door of its own. In a player personnel memo dated September 16 and reported by The Ringer's Tom Pelissero, the league ruled that Dae'Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris cannot visit, try out with or sign with any club for the rest of the season.

The memo's stated reason is that the two players "returned to college and participated with their college football team after the opening of NFL training camp." What "participated" covers, exactly, is not clear from the reporting or from the NFL itself. LSU never added Wright or Harris to its roster, and Lane Kiffin kept both out of the season-opening win over Clemson, a fact this desk reported at the time.

Wright's agent, Drew Rosenhaus, said his client is reviewing his legal options and expects to have more to say soon.

Add it up and the two sides are not in the same position. LSU has now won twice in state court and is offering the SEC a way out at the same time. The SEC still has the enforcement powers it wrote into its bylaws this summer. It can suspend a coach, fine a school half a sport's operating budget or strip a vote. It has used none of them. Its federal lawsuit against LSU, Kiffin, athletic director Verge Ausberry and Rousse himself is still sitting open in Birmingham.

District Attorney Tony Clayton had a blunter reaction. "They just won't quit," he said.