By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
While LSU was winning and the Southeastern Conference and commissioner Greg Sankey were losing in a Baton Rouge courtroom downtown, new LSU football coach Lane Kiffin was in his happy place in more ways than one on Thursday night.
Kiffin pulled up to the spacious Court To Table Kitchen & Bar at 7477 Burbank Drive near LSU that includes nearly a dozen pickleball courts. The super trending sport has been a favorite of Kiffin for years. And Kiffin heard about Court To Table from his daughter Landry last year while he was the head coach at Ole Miss, which naturally had smaller pickleball venues than Baton Rouge – much like the Rebels’ football stadium and other facilities.
“I was just thinking pulling up here,” said Kiffin, who arrived at the 6 p.m. show at 6:38 p.m. “Sometimes you got to a place, and it takes a long time to build it and to have a radio who like this with this many people at it.”
LSU wins preliminary injunction from Baton Rouge judge vs. NCAA and SEC. @racertodd https://t.co/gWcmfMxEl3
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) September 4, 2026
Court To Table, which is owned by mega LSU athletics donor and billboard injury lawyer giant Gordon McKernan, sold out of reserved tickets nearly instantly for the show and packed in several hundred raucous fans in anticipation of the No. 11 Tigers’ season opener against No. 23 Clemson on Saturday in Tiger Stadium (6:49 p.m., ABC).
“I’ve been at some places where we started with about 10 at the radio show,” Kiffin said, but did not mention if that was at Ole Miss, which he rebuilt from a mostly average program to a double-digit win, playoff contender from 2020-25, or Florida Atlantic, where he coached from 2017-19.
“So, it’s real exciting to be at a place where you realize we’re going into a first game and have this much excitement around the program and have a roster this good that may have takent years at another place to build is already here,” Kiffin said. “So, that’s really exciting.”
Kiffin signed 41 players last January in a No. 1-ranked transfer portal class about a month after leaving Ole Miss for LSU, including the No. 1 portal player in redshirt junior quarterback Sam Leavitt of Arizona State and the No. 4 portal player in junior left tackle Jordan Seaton from Colorado.
And shortly after Kiffin’s radio show ended at 7 p.m. Thursday, Kiffin was cleared to play two more “NFL Portal” additions in Baton Rouge court – former Cleveland Browns tight end Dae’Quan Wright and former Saints defensive lineman Zxavian Harris. Both were signed to the Browns’ and Saints’ rosters, but only briefly this summer and never played in any preseason games. Both players tried to return to college at LSU, only because they are in one of the many eligibility lawsuits across the country against the NCAA. They and many others have won temporary restraining orders and injunctions freeing them to play a fifth season. Each played for Kiffin at Ole Miss last season.
“Their power and their rules have been challenged, and they don’t like it. It’s that simple.”
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) September 3, 2026
–@AGLizMurrill captures Greg Sankey in 2 sentences. @racertodd https://t.co/97BYxVPxa1
Baton Rouge District Court Judge William Jorden ruled against the NCAA, the SEC and Sankey in particular in a player eligibility case by granting a group of former college athletes, including Wright and Harris from the class of 2022 a preliminary injunction, allowing them to play for now.
“I’m showing you I’ve got a big gun,” Jorden said to Sankey, who testified for several hours Thursday. And he amazingly displayed a lack of knowledge of the NCAA’s new rule giving athletes from 2023 on five years of play instead of four that was passed last June. And that is the focus the players’ lawsuit against the NCAA that drew the injunction.
“I told you not to do something,” Jorden said referring to Sankey suddenly pushing forth new rules last week that banned the players from the 2022 class from returning to college from NFL teams by virtue of court rulings related to the lawsuit. Sankey later backed down from that. And he lost again Thursday.
“Their power and their rules have been challenged, and they don’t like it. It’s that simple,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said of Sankey and his conference.
On Thursday morning, Sankey and the SEC announced via their headquarters in Birmingham, Alabama, a federal lawsuit against LSU president Wade Rousse, athletic director Verge Ausberry and Kiffin while the hearing was transpiring. Slick. The lawsuit accuses the above LSU parties with “waging a deliberate and coordinated campaign to recruit pro players.”
Murrill did not say that lawsuit was frivolous. Rather, she called it “garbage.”
And suddenly Sankey is in a pickle, but so too is Kiffin as La. Law goes on.
Wright could play for LSU Saturday against Clemson as he has had the necessary five days of practice in the NCAA acclimitization protocol. Harris, who has not practiced because of an injury, cannot. Kiffin could list Wright on his player availability list to the SEC office due Friday, but he could risk backlash from Sankey, although Sankey has displayed a lack of legal knowledge in recent weeks.
But back to Court To Table as LSU’s roster may be increasing from court to field.
“It’s a good warm-up for Tiger Stadium,” Kiffin told the crowd.
LSU football play-by-play radio announcer Chris Blair closed the show by telling Kiffin he was interested in some pickleball coaching tips so he can begin playing. Kiffin said sure, then told a pickleball.
“You made me think about a pickleball story sitting here,” Kiffin said. “Sometimes things come back to me – you know I’ve had a lot of chaos in my life the last year. So, sometimes I forget the actual order of things.”
Kiffin’s daughter Landry, a former Ole Miss student who has been dating LSU linebacker Whit Weeks for more than a year, was at the show Thursday night and has been at Court To Table previously.
“Landry sent me a picture last year,” Kiffin said. “She was down here last season, and I think she had a plan. Like maybe, ‘Hey, I’m going to get my dad down here as a coach,’ you know. And she sent me a picture because at the previous place (Ole Miss), there was no, like pickleball place that had a restaurant indoors like this. They were just normal outdoor public courts. And she’s like, ‘Dad, you would love it down here. They’ve got an inside place that’s really nice with food and everything and you can play pickleball. Just telling you, you might want to look into this place one day.'”
Landry Kiffin didn’t say, “It’s just different at LSU,” which became Kiffin’s patented catchphrase at his introductory LSU press conference on Dec. 1.
But the rest is history.
“Well, how about a hand for Landry,” Blair said.
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