LSU Could Be Kicked Out of SEC as Lane Kiffin's 'Pro Players' Remark Is Cited in Lawsuit

LSU faces a vote on whether to terminate its membership in the Southeastern Conference this week, after the league told a federal court in Alabama that its 16 presidents and chancellors will meet on Thursday to decide whether to remove the university.

The move follows a legal battle over so-called 'pro players' and the use of remarks by head football coach Lane Kiffin in an SEC lawsuit. Under conference rules, expulsion requires a two-thirds vote of the SEC's chief executives.

The dispute centres on whether athletes who briefly signed NFL contracts can return to college sport. Defensive tackle Zxavian Harris and tight end Dae'Quan Wright sued in Louisiana state court for a fifth year of eligibility after the NCAA refused to extend its new five-year model to them.

A Baton Rouge judge granted a temporary restraining order, followed by a preliminary injunction, allowing them and dozens of others to play this season.

SEC Tightens Punishments

In response, SEC presidents, with LSU abstaining, authorised commissioner Greg Sankey to impose fines equal to half a school's football athletic budget, plus a half-season suspension for the head coach, on any school fielding a former professional player.

For Kiffin, that would mean a half-season suspension. The SEC's amended complaint, filed in Alabama, seeks to cement the conference's authority over the matter and asks for a restraining order preventing LSU officials or their lawyers from interfering with Thursday's vote.

The league argues it has a First Amendment right not to be forced into association with conduct it says it has 'expressly condemned'. The complaint now names LSU's entire board of supervisors, including chair Lee Mallett, alongside president Wade Rousse, athletic director Verge Ausberry, Kiffin and Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth 'Liz' Murrill.

The SEC alleges that Murrill has used her office's powers to help LSU force the conference to tolerate behaviour it says breaches its 'core principles'.

Murrill, who filed an amicus brief backing the athletes and called the SEC's federal case 'garbage', has not commented on the amended complaint.

In a statement, the SEC said it acted 'to protect the right of the conference and its member institutions to govern themselves', adding that member universities had agreed procedures for setting rules 'under which they voluntarily compete'.

Kiffin's Comments Add Fuel

Kiffin's comments have sharpened the row. At halftime of LSU's 51-10 win over Clemson on Saturday, his first game in charge, he told ABC the score might have been more lopsided 'if we had pro players', a reference to Wright and Harris, who had trained with the Tigers but were left off the official roster.

The SEC's complaint singles out those remarks, along with Kiffin's later insistence that he pushed to sign the pair because he believed they should be eligible.

'My job is what I believe is right, and I believe we were fighting for what was right for those kids,' Kiffin told reporters. 'Many people don't like that, but they don't understand.'

The conference alleges that Kiffin's stance, set against what it calls a lack of intervention by Rousse and Ausberry, points to 'a lack of institutional control' over the football programme.

Founding Member Faces Unprecedented Sanction

LSU, a founding SEC member since 1933, could be expelled under Section 3.1.5 of the conference constitution if two-thirds of the presidents and chancellors vote to terminate its membership. The prospect of expulsion would mark an unprecedented step for a conference that typically favours private diplomacy.

Wright, briefly with the Cleveland Browns, and Harris, who played for the New Orleans Saints and testified he received just $190 in petrol money, have both committed to LSU.

Neither has yet been added to LSU's roster, although LSU did field fellow plaintiff Junior Tuihalamaka against Clemson. An LSU athletics spokesperson declined to comment. The federal judge in Alabama has not yet ruled on the SEC's request for emergency relief ahead of Thursday's meeting.