LSU opted against putting former NFL players Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris on their roster for Saturday’s game against Clemson on Friday night and that decision pushed pause on the collision between the school and the Southeastern Conference about their desire to have the players on the field this season.
The SEC is opposed to member schools having players who have spent time in the NFL on the roster, but a preliminary injunction in Louisiana barred the conference or the NCAA for penalizing any school that put them on the field. The conference has filed a federal lawsuit to prevent those players from playing and LSU’s head coach Lane Kiffin cited “the uncertainties of what could come” as the reason for the decision to keep Wright and Harris off the field during an appearance on ESPN on Saturday morning.
Kiffin said that he believes that decision was in the “best interest” of the school, but the players could still be added to the roster at a later date so there’s no sign that this is the end of the road. Matt Hayes of USA Today quoted a source saying that they were “not sure LSU would still be a member” of the SEC if the rest of the conference’s schools had voted on Friday and ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum suggested the same on air on Saturday.
Attorney Ryan Downton, who represents Wright and Harris, said in a statement, via Pete Thamel of ESPN, that LSU made a “measured decision” and that “everyone should use that space to lower the temperature and look at the facts” around the case. Downton went on to make the case by noting neither player made a roster or played in a preseason game and closed the statement by hoping that “level heads prevail.”
Little about the process thus far suggests that will be the case and the ongoing court cases mean that there’s likely a lot more to come in the fight that has taken center stage in college football as the 2026 season gets underway.
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