Pat Forde: LSU Is Testing the Limits of College Sports’ New Power Structure

The self-governance plane is being built as the power conferences fly it. The thing might crash of its own accord. It might be shot down by lawyers firing surface-to-air antitrust missiles. But it has lurched off the ground, perhaps sooner than expected, with an urgent eligibility threat serving as the wind beneath its wings.

This is what happened on a fascinating Tuesday in college sports, amid efforts by multiple schools (one in particular, call it Loophole State University) to add former professional athletes to their football and men’s basketball rosters for the 2025–26 season:

Big Ten leaders met and unanimously approved a new rule banning its schools from enrolling football underclassmen who had been through the NFL draft process; players who had signed a pro contract; and players who had been on a pro roster. Then Southeastern Conference administrators met and adopted essentially the same rules, but expanded it to include NBA and WNBA players.

The SEC vote was a unanimous 16–0, sources tell Sports Illustrated, which might have been the most interesting development of the day, given the one particular school’s role in stirring up this tumult.

Meanwhile, Big 12 athletic directors met and are in favor of similar conference legislation, with more meetings to come. Atlantic Coast Conference leaders have an already scheduled meeting Wednesday morning but will discuss similar rules and have the support to implement them, sources say.

In a time of diminished NCAA authority and increased legal attacks on that authority, the biggest conferences are getting busy policing their own neighborhoods. It took a crisis to turn long-discussed theory into action, but that’s often the necessary trigger to spur cumbersome college athletic bureaucracies to move.

Even for leaders with a high tolerance for flimflammery, the college sports eligibility crisis finally became too ridiculous to tolerate. Too many coaches trying to pull a fast one to bring in another star player. Too many schools willing to embarrass themselves by enabling the coach. Too many local judges pressing a thumb down on the hometown side of the scales of justice.

As one prominent college sports executive described it to SI on Tuesday, “This s--- [is] out of control. That’s why this is happening.”

Both the SEC and Big Ten have approved aggressive penalties for any school wishing to tempt fate. The SEC on Wednesday set parameters for a half-season suspension of the head coach, a fine equal to half that sport’s operating budget and loss of league voting privileges—with commissioner Greg Sankey having the latitude to lay on even more sanctions. The Big Ten on Tuesday drew a similarly hard line, with a half-season coach suspension and a 20% operating budget fine. (Big Ten rules have only addressed football thus far.)

The conference moves feel like the dawn of a new era—and not one that involves them breaking away from each other, as has been prophesied. At least for now.

To the contrary, this is an instance of conferences banding together behind a common aversion to NFL and NBA dropouts coming back to play college ball. They’re banding together unofficially, of course, lest collusion charges start flying. (They will, soon enough.)

Thus the summer of self-governance continues. SEC leaders talked about it in May. Then the Big 12 became a catalyst two months ago, when 15/16ths of the league rose up in opposition to Texas Tech’s attempt to play admitted gambler Brendan Sorsby this football season. That felt like the start of something at the time, and it was.

Will this power play by the power conferences stand up in court? That remains to be seen.

“Every [conference] has to do their own risk analysis,” says a power-conference administrator involved in Tuesday’s talks. “You’re going to have a lot of lawsuits.”

The legal fight will continue, and perhaps even escalate, in Louisiana. That’s become ground zero in the NFL-to-college upheaval: a state judge granted a temporary restraining order that cleared the way for 16 athletes to return to college, most notably multiple pro football players who intend to transfer to LSU; and a separate ruling put pro basketball transfer RJ Luis Jr. on track to transfer in and play for the Tigers.

LSU appeared to be dug in, pushing the scam to the legal limit and daring the SEC to call the Tigers on it. Then the SEC did on Tuesday.

Within that came a plot twist: the SEC’s 16–0 vote included one from LSU. School president Wade Rousse, beneficiary of a good-ol’-boy promotion from McNeese State by Gov. Jeff Landry earlier this year, apparently signed off on a rule that theoretically shuts down what his football and men’s basketball teams are trying to do.

Maybe this was the power of a room full of more experienced SEC administrators pushing LSU into the corner and telling it to get in line or face sanctions. Maybe it was a case of Rousse reading the room, facing a 15–1 vote, and rolling over for the sake of appearances. Maybe LSU voted that way while still believing what really matters will happen in court, not in a Birmingham boardroom.

Regardless, it’s a fascinating development.

The boogle of weasels in Baton Rouge is really something. Coaches Lane Kiffin and Will Wade, driving forces behind the pro-to-college recruiting stratagem, are immune to shame. They’re always up to something, and always trying to explain it away in unconvincing fashion. And they’ve been enabled (if not outright encouraged) by feckless leadership that goes all the way to the governor’s mansion.

LSU men’s basketball coach Will Wade — Will Wade is back at LSU and already on the forefront of boundary-pushing. | USA TODAY Sports

The weirdest part about this penchant for unapologetic rogue behavior is that LSU doesn’t really have to be an outlaw athletic department. This isn’t Texas Tech, isolated on the South Plains and looked down upon by the powers in the Lone Star State for generations, fighting to gain a respect it’s rarely enjoyed. LSU is a place that wins national championships in several sports; puts 100,000 fans in the stands for home football games; and has one of the largest athletic budgets in the country at more than $200 million. Greatness can happen organically there.

Yet the flagship school in the state that produced colorful scofflaw governor Huey Long seems intent on keeping his anything-goes ethos alive. And if that means LSU winning the race to the bottom of college sports, fine. I mean, they hired Wade twice. If you’re willing to do that, you are unbound by principle.

If one institution of higher learning is sufficiently rebellious, rambunctious and unrepentant to not just pick a 1-on-15 fight but prolong it, LSU is that school. Regardless of the Tuesday vote, the university might be too invested in the all-out pursuit of football glory to back down now. After swallowing a $54 million buyout to get rid of Brian Kelly and then pulling Kiffin away from College Football Playoff–bound Mississippi, in a messy and expensive gambit, the stakes have gone as high as they can go.

But LSU’s power play is running headlong into an SEC self-governance flex. It appears that all the power conferences are ready to make some of their own rules, flying the plane and building it at the same time, and hoping they can land it intact.

PODCAST: Listen to SI’s college sports podcast, Others Receiving Votes, hosted by Pat Forde, below or on Apple and Spotify. Watch the show on SI’s college YouTube channel or on SI TV.

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