Yes, the SEC really could 'terminate' LSU. Here's an inside look at the fight that could reshape college football

Imagine for a second that the most anticipated SEC football game in many years is not actually an SEC football game at all.

If SEC presidents and chancellors vote to expel LSU from the conference on Thursday — there is a scheduled vote — and if that decision would take effect immediately, the LSU-Ole Miss football game in Oxford next Saturday would transform into a non-conference game, one person within the league suggested.

"The game may not be played at all," another stakeholder quipped.

The ramifications don't stop there, of course. The SEC evicting from the league a longstanding member would serve as an unprecedented move that will invariably cause ripple effects across the country. The school stands to lose millions in conference distribution, have its schedule of games stripped and path to championships blocked — all over their intentions to potentially add professional football and basketball players to their rosters.

Those in Baton Rouge are somewhat mystified.

The program did not add to its football roster those aforementioned professional players. So, what are the grounds for booting the school from the league?

Well, for one, the league does not need grounds or reasoning, according to the bylaws. But the conference, in a federal lawsuit against the school filed in Alabama, did spell out some reasons: LSU left open roster spots to possibly, at a later date, add those aforementioned players; coach Lane Kiffin suggested through comments in various media availabilities that he recruited pro players while knowing it is against the rules; and the university leadership, despite voting for the SEC's pro-player ban, has mostly remained on the sideline as its coach pursues such rule-breaking.

The SEC's legal filing asks a judge to permit the conference to enforce its rules by, potentially, expelling the school from the league. And while that's stunning to see in print, none of us should be too surprised, unless of course you missed a story at Yahoo Sports last week revealing this as a possibility that conference leaders have been discussing now for more than a week.

A hearing is set for 1 p.m. CT Wednesday in Birmingham, where a judge may open a path for the SEC to enforce such sanctions upon the Tigers.

What's lingering over all of this is what LSU can do to prevent such a vote from happening on Thursday. Common sense tells us this can be rectified if school administrators indicate they will follow the rules.

Perhaps that means president Wade Rousse releases a public statement announcing that the school will abide by SEC guidance and not add pro players to the roster. Or maybe he sends the SEC's legal team a formal note that says such.

The pro players recruited by LSU are part of a class of athletes who won an injunction last week from a Louisiana judge granting them a fifth season of eligibility to return to college after signing pro contracts this summer. As part of that ruling, LSU is prohibited from taking any action that negatively impacts those players (such as, you know, not adding them to the roster after promising them a spot!).

Coach Will Wade's basketball team plans to add to its roster RJ Luis, who played in three NBA games and won an injunction in a separate Louisiana court ruling.

This is a Louisiana-versus-the-SEC moment that reaches toward the highest rung of state government.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry described the SEC's threats as "ridiculous," and asked, "Can we just play football?" Well, LSU did, in fact, play football last week, opening its season with an evisceration of Clemson, 51-10 , in Tiger Stadium.

The Tigers are good enough that one LSU staff member quipped on Tuesday, "I would get rid of us too if we played like that in our first game."

Other politicians are coming to the support of their state's biggest brand. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) called for the SEC to apply its rules consistently and described the SEC's approach to the LSU situation as a "hypocrisy" that is unfair to college athletes.

"The SEC is threatening LSU while the same conference allows athletes who spent YEARS competing professionally in foreign leagues to play immediately," Cassidy wrote, perhaps a nod to the Charles Bediako situation at Alabama in the spring.

But will the SEC really do it? Will the SEC kick out of the league, in the middle of football season, one of its biggest brands in the sport? Will the league boot a football program that's won three national championships since 2003, a baseball team that claimed titles in two of the last four seasons, and women's basketball and gymnastics teams that won it all in 2023 and 2024, respectively?

In all, the university has claimed 53 team national titles.

Surely, the conference would not hit the eject button on this, right?

"This," said one administrator within the conference Tuesday, "is real."

In fact, the SEC presidents met on Aug. 30 without LSU on the call — the first real sign that something big was brewing. They discussed the plethora of options as reported in that Aug. 31 story from Yahoo Sports: a boycott of LSU, a suspension or probation, and, yes, expulsion. The group met again on Friday, a day before LSU's season opener, to continue those discussions, digging deeper into the legal maneuvers necessary to make such an unprecedented move happen.

The presidents need 11 supportive votes from the 16 schools to expel a member. For more than a week now — since that Aug. 30 gathering — the belief is that they have the necessary votes to place LSU on probation at the very least, if not fully booting the university.

In fact, at least a couple executives at SEC schools have suggested to their ACC brethren that there might be a spot open in the league soon.

"There are plenty of other schools who will take their place," said one high-ranking SEC university leader to Yahoo Sports.

If you've been following realignment discussions, you know that several ACC programs are itching to leave the conference and join the SEC. Two of them, in fact, filed a lawsuit against the league: Florida State and Clemson.

Another, North Carolina, is probably the most attractive replacement, according to many in the SEC. And others, like Miami, Georgia Tech and Virginia, are interesting options that have kept their intentions more private.

This whole situation unfolds at an intriguing time in the sport's landscape.

The SEC's aggressive approach to LSU is seen as the first test of a potential conference-wide governance framework, a long-discussed concept in the league where it creates and enforces its own rules separate from the NCAA to limit legal challenges. Permitting a member school to already, even before the league-wide governance model is established, break conference policies would jeopardize the viability of any new governance concept.

So, yes, says one SEC president, this is serious.

"It is time," the president said, "for everyone to follow SEC rules."