Louisiana governor balks at SEC's ban on former NFL players

Two distinct schools of thought have emerged regarding the recent manifestation of the chaos in college football. One relies on using the unprecedented ability of former NFL players to return to college for another season as fuel to turn the Protect College Sports Act into the law of the land. The other arises from a burning desire to win as many football games as possible right now.

It has created a scenario in which conferences like the SEC, the Big Ten, and most recently the Big 12 have adopted performative rules aimed at building political momentum for antitrust exemption and schools like LSU have jumped on the opportunity to enhance the roster with the addition of players who had been under contract with NFL teams.

Not surprisingly, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry is siding with his state's flagship football program.

"This whole thing is ridiculous. Don't hate the player, hate the game ," Landry said regarding the SEC's rule, via John Blau of the Advocate .

"I've been saying for a year that college sports need to be fixed," Landry added. "The NCAA could have done it. Congress could have done it. Neither did. Now the SEC is creating a legal mess over athletes it told were out of eligibility, only to change the rules afterward."

The legal mess keeps getting messier. The conferences potentially are violating the court order allowing players to get the fifth year that the NCAA has now baked into the rules.

"The SEC accepted the courts' decisions on Diego Pavia and Trinidad Chambliss ," Landry said. "Why is this different? You can't tell athletes their college careers are over, watch them move on, change the rules later, and then punish them for not predicting the future."

Of course, Landry is only taking that position because LSU wants to add these players. If LSU coach Lane Kiffin was content to move forward with the players he has and if, say, Georgia wanted to sign former NFL players who have secured a fifth year through the courts, Landry would be aggressively waving an SEC flag and complaining about Georgia's effort to violate the spirit of amateur athletics.

Everyone involved in this fiasco is acting in their own interests. And the ultimate prize continues to be creating enough of a mess that Congress will pass the Protect College Sports Act under the guise of injecting normalcy into the process — while also stripping the players of their earning potential and mobility.

You know, the two things that got Kiffin to ditch Ole Miss during the 2025 season and pounce on the chance to work for LSU.