The SEC maintains that every one of its current members, including LSU, had previously agreed that “individuals who choose to leave college athletics, sign professional playing contracts, and compete professionally should not then be permitted to return to college competition.”
The Southeastern Conference (SEC) has filed a lawsuit against Louisiana State University, one of its founding members, in an effort to prevent the school from letting athletes who attended NFL training camps from playing on the Tigers’ football team.
According to The Associated Press, the lawsuit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Alabama, where the SEC is headquartered. It asks the court for an injunction prohibiting LSU from violating the Southeastern Conference’s First Amendment rights by forcing it to “associate with conduct that is contrary to the conference’s purpose and mission.”
The lawsuit names defendants including the university, its board of supervisors, athletic director Verge Ausberry, coach Lane Kiffin, and school president Wade Rousse.
The filing, notes The Associated Press, came shortly after SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey defended the conference’s ability to enforce rules against professional athletes playing on member-teams in a Louisiana state court. At the end of the hours-long hearing, East Baton Rouge Parish Judge William Jorden issued a preliminary injunction against the NCAA, the effect of which would let LSU place a number of former NFL players on its roster.
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“The SEC has endured and thrived for nearly a century because its members have adhered to that common set of rules, which each member institution, and every coach at those institutions, has agreed to follow,” the SEC said in its new federal lawsuit. “Among the most fundamental of those rules are the longstanding provisions that prohibit individuals who have entered a professional draft, signed professional contracts, or been rostered on a professional athletics team from returning to compete in college athletics (the “Professionalism Rules”).”
“These rules are built upon an essential principle: college athletics is reserved for students who are actively pursuing an education while competing for their universities. The Professionalism Rules preserve competitive fairness, protect opportunities for high school students and current college athletes, and maintain the distinction between college and professional sports,” attorneys for the SEC wrote.
ESPN reports that the lawsuit describes the distinction between amateur and professional sporting activities as “critical” to the SEC’s structure, mission, and governance.
“Specifically, Defendants waged a deliberate and coordinated campaign to recruit professional athletes to play football for LSU during the 2026-27 season, including players who had signed NFL contracts with the Cleveland Browns, New Orleans Saints, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers,” the lawsuit alleges. “Numerous reports have shown that at least two of these professional athletes are on campus and actively practicing with LSU’s football team. Defendants have also expressed their unequivocal intent to place those athletes on LSU’s official football roster and allow them to participate in football games during the upcoming season.”
The SEC maintains that every one of its current members, including LSU, had previously agreed that “individuals who choose to leave college athletics, sign professional playing contracts, and compete professionally should not then be permitted to return to college competition.”
Additionally, the lawsuit says, Rousse and LSU in August voted in favor of the SEC issuing a statement reaffirming that teams competing in the conference can and should not have professional athletes on their rosters.
“Despite the SEC’s longstanding rules prohibiting professional athletes from returning to college athletics, Defendants saw this as an opportunity to be exploited,” the SEC said.
Sources
For the second time this summer, a power conference has gone to court against one of its schools
SEC files suit vs. LSU over school’s intent to play pro athletes
