Lane Kiffin couldn’t help himself.
At halftime, as his LSU team took a 31-3 lead over Clemson into the locker room, the Tigers’ head coach was about to dash off after chatting with ESPN sideline reporter Holly Rowe. And then he leaned back in.
“Imagine if we had pro players,” he quipped.
That’s line-item number 90 in the Southeastern Conference’s amended complaint, filed on Tuesday in a federal courtroom. The league, clearly fed up and disgusted with Lane being Lane, has asked the Northern District Court of Alabama for a temporary restraining order to ensure that no one from LSU can block or interfere with, among other things, a meeting scheduled for Thursday to discuss whether the conference ought to boot the school from its membership.
“The SEC and its member universities have the right to establish, through agreed-upon governance procedures, the rules under which they voluntarily compete and to expect those rules to be followed,” the league said in a statement.
“A commitment to those rules, and to the core principles of the Southeastern Conference, is an essential element of SEC membership. Today’s filing is necessary to defend that right and preserve the Conference’s ability to govern competition among its members.”
It likely won’t come to that.
This feels like posturing from a rightfully exasperated Greg Sankey and his other 15 university presidents. The thought of the SEC expelling one of its charter members after 94 years of inclusion seems preposterous. Of course, LSU – which stomped Clemson 51-10 on Saturday – dying on a hill over two guys who couldn’t even make it in the NFL, also is ridiculous.
Besides LSU, despite its blustering and blathering, already blinked first.
On the eve of the Tigers’ game against Clemson on Friday, Kiffin opted not to add Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris to the roster, arguing that without knowing the full ramifications of their inclusion, it was in the best interest of the football program to sit them out.
Except, LSU couldn’t stop there. The school also said it would leave two roster spots open, just in case they change their mind later.
That, coupled with Kiffin’s smart-aleck quip to Rowe is why we’re here, with a scheduled Zoom meeting on Thursday to discuss expulsion.
It appears the Tigers may be blinking again after the SEC’s filing on Tuesday. Multiple reports on Tuesday night indicated the two open roster spots were filled by players other than Wright and Harris, meaning they will not play for LSU this season.
The whole thing, frankly, feels a lot like when my kids were little.
My son was great at needling my daughter in ways he knew would get a rise out of her, and my daughter could never not take the bait. Parenting wound up being a lot of “you stop annoying your sister and you stop falling for it.”
So, Lane. Please stop annoying Greg. And Greg, for the love of God, stop falling for it. And everyone stop whining to their mom about the other one – or in this case, a federal judge.
LSU has clearly decided to not only live in the swill of the college athletics pigsty, but to flop about in it. Goaded on by a governor, who handpicked the university president and staged a coup to overthrow one athletic director in order to hire Kiffin, the bayou bandits are proudly wearing their black hats. In a video alleged to be from the Tigers’ locker room at the half against Clemson, someone screams, “The whole world f**king hates you. Let’s go tell the whole world to f**k off.’’
SEC fights to ban pro players returning to college football
Meanwhile, basketball coach Will Wade currently has a roster of only four players a month before official practice begins. By rule, you need five, though perhaps one could sue for an exception?
Anyway, that’s because Wade – who got fired from the school after an NCAA investigation four years ago only to return in black-hatted triumph – is trying to bring RJ Luis, who signed an NBA contract, and a host of guys involved in fifth-year eligibility court orders to campus.
So yes, LSU is off the rails. They are spending who-knows-how-much in billable hours to add two players they really don’t need to the roster. It is not about principle, as that requires those involved to actually possess them.
It is about thumbing their nose at authority and being a thorn in the side of its SEC siblings. It’s about being right about being wrong. It is a preposterous battle of egos that has sucked the oxygen out of college football. If they haven’t yet, Michigan, Big Ten clock officials, Rutgers and the Florida State facilities team ought to each send Kiffin a big ol’ bouquet.
The SEC is not only within its rights to try to find a way to penalize one of its members for bad behavior; it has been left with no other real choice. That a Louisiana judge handcuffed the conference with a ruling that says it couldn’t penalize LSU for breaking one of its rules is jurisprudence of the absurd. Sankey is wise to seek relief from more absurdity.
Back when my kids got to instigating and overreacting, I’d try to rationalize with them. Tell them that they were meant to be each other’s champions, and that one day they’d only have each other. Except kids being kids, my son would keep needling and my daughter would keep wailing. Eventually, I’d reach the tipping point that every parent eventually reaches:
Knock it off. Or else.
Here’s hoping this is the SEC’s tipping point. Or else.