SEC files bombshell lawsuit against LSU, Lane Kiffin while pro players fight for college eligibility in court
The Southeastern Conference (SEC) blitzed LSU on Thursday with a lawsuit as Commissioner Greg Sankey and others were in court over NCAA eligibility for professional athletes.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama Southern Division around 11:40 a.m. Central time as the hearing over eligibility got underway.
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SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey speaks at the SEC Football Media Day at Tampa Marriott Water Street on July 20, 2026, in Tampa, Fla. (Getty Images)
The lawsuit named the university, school president Wade Rousse, vice president and athletics director Verge Ausberry and head football coach Lane Kiffin as defendants. While Sankey was being questioned by the plaintiffs, the SEC’s lawsuit against LSU and Kiffin hit the court portal.
Coincidence? Probably not.
The lawsuit alleged that the defendants “waged a deliberate and coordinated campaign to recruit professional athletes to play football for LSU during the 2026-27 season, including players who signed NFL contracts with the Cleveland Browns, New Orleans Saints and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.”
“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 says in the lawsuit that while LSU and other member schools “affirmed” that professional athletes should be barred from returning to the collegiate field, the “defendants have continued to campaign to engage in willful efforts to recruit and soon roster professional athletes in direct defiance of the Professionalism rules.”
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LSU head coach Lane Kiffin works during fall practice at Tiger Stadium on Aug. 22, 2026, in Baton Rouge, La. (University Images via Getty Images)
The SEC called LSU’s alleged efforts to play professional athletes “detrimental to the Conference and contrary to its core purpose” and that LSU “threatens to cause further substantial harm if not curbed.”
OutKick reached out to LSU for comment.
The lawsuit was filed as athletes seek a ruling that could clear the way for them to play this fall. The SEC filed a brief in the case on Wednesday in which it stated that the question before the judge should be narrowed on whether the conference “can enforce and require its member institutions to comply with SEC rules.”
Sankey provided an affidavit that stated that SEC presidents voted unanimously (15-0) in favor of the new rules with Rousse abstaining.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, who also attended Thursday’s hearing, wrote in a brief that the NCAA had subjected athletes in the case to a “classic bait-and-switch.”
LSU head coach Lane Kiffin is in action during spring practice at the LSU Football Operations Center in Baton Rouge, La., on April 9, 2026. (University Images via Getty Images)
“The NCAA’s ever-changing rules have consequences beyond these individual athletes,” Murrill said. “They affect the universities that recruit them, the other student-athletes with whom they compete, and the coaches and administrators responsible for complying with an increasingly complicated set of rules.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
