TIGER RAG NEWS SERVICES
LSU president Wade Rousse promised continued cooperation with the Southeastern Conference office on Friday after football players Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris recently added to LSU’s roster received a preliminary injunction in a Baton Rouge court room on Thursday, allowing them to proceed as players for the Tigers this season.
The players are two of many athletes from the collegiate entering class of 2022 who are suing the NCAA, and in this specific case the SEC as well, for a fifth year of eligibility in 2026 after being skipped over by a new NCAA rule in June that started with the class of 2023 entries.
“LSU respects the judicial process and the court’s decision,” Rousse said. “Our responsibility is to support our programs while complying with the law and the rule governing our conference. We will carefully review the court’s order and continue to work constructively with the SEC and the NCAA as this matter moves forward. College football does not deserve this kind of ambiguity in eligibility standards.”
Rouse, as have other college leaders, used the confusion by by the NCAA and SEC offices and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey’s lack of clarity concerning eligibility guardrails and exactly what constitutes a professional athlete to urge Congress to pass the Protect College Sports Act bill. That has been moving in Washington D.C. throughout the summer but is yet to pass.
“This is just another illustration that Congress needs to pass a version of the Protect College Sport Act,” Rousse said.
Rousse did not comment on the SEC’s lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court in Birmingham, Alabama, against Rouse, LSU athletic director Verge Ausberry and football coach Lane Kiffin for allegedly “waging a deliberate and coordinated campaign to recruit pro players.”
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, an LSU law school graduate and former Louisiana Law Review editor who has been a lawyer for more than three decades, dismissed the SEC’s lawsuit against LSU on Thursday, calling it “garbage.”
None of the “pro players” the lawsuit references have ever played in a pro football game and only appeared as signed members of an NFL roster for a few weeks this summer. And all of them were isolated examples of players trying to return to college football because they were in the lawsuit with the other class of 2022 athletes trying to gain the extra year of elibility that the 2023 entries will be receiving after the 2022 entries just missed the opportunity.
From Court To Table, Lane Kiffin wins, Greg Sankey loses, but both may be in a Pickle as Lane’s radio show packs ‘em in.https://t.co/qJZYbdrzHW
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) September 4, 2026
The Thursday ruling applied to only the athletes named in one of the many similar suits around the country by athletes entering college in 2022. Similar lawsuits from classes before 2022 are not expected as those athletes were already gone from college for a significant period of time. Whereas the 2022 entries just missed a chance for a fifth year by weeks as the NCAA did not pass the rule until June 16 after the sports calendar year for 2025-26 had ended.
As far as players who appeared on NFL rosters such as Wright and Harris, albeit very briefly, they only tried to get back to school, specifically at LSU now, because they were in the lawsuit at question against the NCAA and the SEC. Past and future college players who were cut or will be cut from NFL rosters over a summer before playing in regular season games are not expected to try to sue for another year of college eligibility, becaues they are not on the present, isolated lawsuits.
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