TIGER RAG NEWS SERVICES
LSU coach Lane Kiffin denied reports that he encouraged players to join the Louisiana lawsuit seeking a fifth season of eligibility for class of 2022 athletes during an appearance on “Off Campus” on SirusXM College Sports Radio Friday morning.
“These kids made these decisions on their own with attorneys of what to do, and this was a while back that they made these decisions,” Kiffin said. “And it’s all around the country. Everybody wants to point to the Louisiana case, but there’s cases in South Carolina, Texas, California, all over that have athletes in the exact same situations wanting to play this year they’ve been granted.”
Kiffin said that the question about the reports was the first he had heard of the report.
The article in question was from CBS Sports by John Talty and Chris Hummer that was published Tuesday night, following the Southeastern Conference’s announcement of its new policy prohibiting schools from signing ex-players from the NFL, NBA and WNBA. The story said that Kiffin and LSU orchestrated the lawsuit behind the scenes and pointed to the facts it was filed in Baton Rouge and included former Tiger Jack Pyburn as well as three former Ole Miss players coached by Kiffin last year.
The article reads, “Kiffin and the Tigers reached out to multiple players on NFL rosters or their representation in an effort to get them to bring a lawsuit against the NCAA and return to school, per sources.”
In addition to Kiffin refuting the the Talty-Hummer story, it also has a mistake in paragraph nine concerning Notre Dame edge rusher Junior Tuihalamaka. He committed to LSU on Aug. 21 after entering the portal on Aug. 20 – one day after a Louisiana judge’s ruling that he was eligible to play a fifth season in 2026 along with many others suing the NCAA over its new rule allowing five seasons for players in five years instead of four seasons in five.
“The Tigers have signed three former NFL players so far — Harris, former Ole Miss tight end Dae’quan Wright and former Notre Dame EDGE Junior Tuihalamaka,” the story says.
Tuihalamaka has never been on an NFL roster as Harris and Wright were. And Tuihalamaka never even tried out for an NFL team or attended a mini-camp. The mistake still remains in the story.
Talty and Hummer were not the first to report that LSU played a hand in developing the lawsuit. Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports made the connection to LSU’s campus in an article published on Aug. 21, four days before the SEC approved its new bylaws. However, Dellenger and his sources did not explicitly name Kiffin as the mastermind.
“Those with knowledge of the situation in Baton Rouge and beyond have made it quite clear: The lawsuit was an orchestrated effort originating from LSU’s campus,” Dellenger wrote.
Unlike the CBS Sports article, Dellenger went on to write that LSU was not alone in helping along eligibility lawsuits across the country. Dellenger stated that numerous schools have been fighting eligibility rules under the belief that another school will try to gain the competitive advantage if they do not do it first.
This is the same rationale Kiffin had when he first received a commitment from former Eagles and Browns tight end Dae’Quan Wright last Sunday.
“At the end of the day, you know, because of these rulings, they’re either going to play for you or they’re going to play somewhere else around the country,” Kiffin said in a press conference on Monday. “We’ve made the decision to recruit them like probably most people are.”
Kiffin also noted Friday that other schools have recruited the former NFL players, but he and LSU are receiving the bulk of the attention because they were the first to receive a major commitment from an ex-pro in Wright. That conclusion also echoed the sentiment he expressed on Monday.
“I understand that. That is what it is. Any time someone’s first out of the gate with something, that happens,” he said. “But there are a lot of people trying to do the same thing. Other coaches are trying to do the same thing. But these players, they chose you, so you get attention.”
This is not the first claim about him Kiffin has refuted during the NFL player eligibility saga.
Cleveland Browns head coach Todd Monken, who coached Wright from when he was claimed off waivers on Aug. 11 to when Cleveland waived him Aug. 23, said at a press conference last Saturday that he missed a call the previous week from Kiffin likely about Wright.
“I wondered why Lane Kiffin reached out a week ago. Now I know,” Monken said. “I didn’t call him back now. I guess I should have.”
Kiffin, though, said that he never called Monken. In fact, he doesn’t even have his number.
“I found that interesting. There are some inaccuracies in that story,” Kiffin said. “Maybe somebody else called and said it was me. I don’t know him. That was not me.”
Monken later walked back the comments, apologized and said he was not contacted by Kiffin. Someone on his staff told him he was contacted by someone with LSU.
“One of our staff had said that they had gotten a text,” Monken said. “I should have followed through with it. Maybe they meant someone from their staff. That’s on me. I should not throw someone’s name out there without following through with it. I was just making light of it. I really was not trying to make a big thing of it. It was just like, ‘Man, what’s this world coming to?’”
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