As with so many other college football controversies, LSU head coach Lane Kiffin is at the center of the latest one, this time involving the idea of players returning to college after signing an NFL contract.
On Tuesday, Kiffin appeared on The Pat McAfee Show and addressed his controversial recruitment of his former Ole Miss tight end Dae’Quan Wright, who spent the last few months on the Cleveland Browns’ roster. On the show he defended his recruitment of Wright, pointing out that court orders (like the one that gave Wright extra eligibility) have been used for other players to get back into playing.
“Over 100 athletes in multiple sports were cleared and said you could go play. That’s a court order,” Kiffin said. “If you think back on all the different court orders of great players that were granted — whether that’s Diego Pavia or, now, Trinidad (Chambliss) that were allowed to play a sixth year, we followed all court orders. I think you get into a really interesting situation as a conference if you’re now saying, ‘Well, we’re not going to follow this court order.’ These kids that a court says can go anywhere, we’re going to say, ‘No you can’t.’”
Where there’s an exception to be made…
Kiffin stated point-blank that he’s opposed to NFL players returning to college football, but believes that Wright is an exception. He acknowledged that any team that recruited Wright was going to be bringing in “the poster child” for the issue of NFL players returning to college.
“I don’t think professionals should come back to college sports and college football particularly… (But) this isn’t professionals that have gone and played seasons or just randomly filed an injunction in a state to become eligible,” he said.
“Whoever the first player committed to was going to be the poster child. I told my team that… There’s all kinds of schools that recruited him. Ask Drew Rosenhaus, his agent. There were schools that offered him a lot to come there, including in this conference, and including his previous school. But he chose us. I said, ‘Get ready guys. This is going to be Lane Kiffin and LSU are doing something nobody else is doing.’”
© Maria Lysaker-Imagn Images.
The Southeastern Conference vehemently disagreed with Kiffin’s stance though.
Hours after Kiffin’s appearance, both the SEC and the Big Ten Conference announced a new policy that expressly prohibited teams from having athletes who previously signed a pro contract with one of the major sports leagues or even declared for the draft in one of those leagues.
But just because they have that policy, it doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily be able to enforce it…
