By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
LSU athletic director Verge Ausberry talked a lot about new football coach Lane Kiffin and the upcoming season that starts a week from Saturday while on WAFB-TV’s “Jacques Talk” with sports director Jacques Doucet on Thursday.
But he did not discuss Kiffin’s and LSU’s much-publicized feud with the Southeastern Conference and commissioner Greg Sankey over Kiffin gaining commitments from two NFL players over the past week with a possible third on the way. And Sankey has been added to the controversial lawsuit by college athletes from the class of 2022 suing the NCAA (which includes the SEC) for an extra season in 2026. That lawsuit includes the former NFL players Kiffin has added – tight end Dae’Quan Wright, formerly of the Cleveland Browns as of last week, and defensive tackle Zxavian Harris, formerly of the New Orleans Saints as of this summer.
One would think that being a former NCAA compliance guy at the SEC office, Greg Sankey would understand that the SEC is under the NCAA umbrella. And therefore, if the NCAA is under a restraining order, so is the SEC. https://t.co/KNRDPZKtSx
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) August 27, 2026
Sankey and the SEC passed a rule barring LSU and other SEC schools from signing such NFL players with punishments for that in a move that goes directly against various judges’ temporary restraining orders against the NCAA and its member conferences like the SEC.
“The judges have ruled. The SEC (@GregSankey) needs to abide by that. The NCAA needs to abide by that.”
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) August 28, 2026
-Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, an attorney and former Attorney General of Louisiana. @kacehk https://t.co/q6e770pw9e
Those restraining orders have apparently legally freed those players to return to college teams, regardless of what Sankey says.
A third former NFL player – 2025 LSU edge rusher Jack Pyburn – is also expected to commit to LSU under the same lawsuit and temporary restraining orders, if he is released by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on the NFL’s next cutting day on Tuesday.
So, Ausberry, not surprisingly, asked not to discuss all that drama on WAFB as it is a sitting legal battle. But Ausberry did discuss Kiffin and the upcoming football season.
“We’re ready for the game,” Ausberry said. “It’s time for football season. I’ve been trying to find something on TV for the last three or four weeks.”
No. 11 LSU hosts No. 23 Clemson a week from Saturday in 102,321-seat Tiger Stadium (6:30 p.m., ABC).
The game is sold out as is LSU’s home game against Alabama on Nov. 7 and Texas on Nov. 14.
And ESPN’s College GameDay on Saturday morning will be broadcasting live from campus.
“This is the first time in history we’re on GameDay for the first game,” Ausberry beamed. “And also the SEC Network. The whole football world will be watching LSU in nine days. It’s just so great. You hire a guy like Lane Kiffin – that’s the expectation, the expectation of this team.”
Ausberry was the one who hired Kiffin shortly after replacing the fired Scott Woodward as athletic director after Woodward fired football coach Brian Kelly last October.
“Lane has put together a great staff and a great roster,” Ausberry said.
Doucet asked Ausberry about Dr. Pepper’s latest “Fansville” commercial that Kiffin appears on, saying, “Not really known for following the rules.”
But any publicity is good publicity, as far as Ausberry is concerned.
“That’s what we want,” Ausberry said about the commercial. “That’s the LSU brand. That’s what Kim Mulkey (LSU national champion women’s basketball coach), Jay Johnson (twice-LSU national champion baseball coach) and Will Wade (new basketball coach for a second time after being fired the first time for NCAA recruiting violations). That’s the brand. It sells LSU.”
Southern athletic director Roman Banks appeared on “Jacques Talk” with Ausberry. And Ausberry pointed out that the new football coach hired by Banks after last season – NFL great Marshall Faulk of Carver High in New Orleans – was introduced as the new coach on the same day Kiffin was at LSU on Dec. 1.
After Faulk’s press conference, he went over to LSU to say hello to Kiffin.
“What are you doing here?” Ausberry said Kiffin asked Faulk.
“He had no idea that Marshall was just named Southern’s coach,” Ausberry said. “We had the press conferences on the same day.”
Ausberry also shared an anecdote about Faulk when he was being recruited by LSU out of Carver High for the 1991 recruiting class.
“I was at LSU when he came on his recruiting visit,” said Ausberry, who was a rookie in the athletic department at the time when Curley Hallman was the football coach. “We told him at LSU to play defensive back instead of running back.”
Faulk instead went to San Diego State as a running back, and the rest is history as he gained 1,429 yards as a freshman.
“So, that gets coaches fired,” Ausberry said.
Hallman never had a winning season as LSU’s coach from 1991-94 before being fired.
Ausberry and Banks also discussed the second-ever LSU-Southern football game that will be on Sept. 9, 2028, at Tiger Stadium. LSU beat Southern, 65-17, on Sept. 10, 2022, in Tiger Stadium in the first meeting.
“Verge, thanks a lot for that check. It means a lot, old friend,” Banks said smiling of the $700,000 LSU paid Southern for the game.
“Keep it in the state,” laughed Ausberry, who did the football scheduling at the time as deputy athletic director.
Ausberry also spoke of former LSU athletic director and five-time national champion LSU baseball coach Skip Bertman, who died on Aug. 14 with a Celebration of Life at the Assembly Center on Tuesday.
“He taught me how to deal with coaches and players,” Ausberry said of Bertman, whom he worked under from 2001-09. “Great mentor. Skip was one of the best at how you pull a team together in the athletic department to one goal.”
Ausberry gave one of the eulogies on Tuesday night.
“He took what he did as a coach and transcended that into us in the athletic administration,” Ausberry said. “He put the structures in place that we have now. He started the Tradition Fund (extremely lucrative football season ticket licensing program in 2003). He built facilities – the Football Operations Center, the basketball practice facility, the new baseball stadium and softball stadium, the Academic Center. That was Skip. He did a lot that most athletic directors wouldn’t do or couldn’t do.”
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