LSU has a new headache before it even takes the field Saturday.
Clemson officials have told the Tigers that suiting up former professional players may break the game contract between the two schools.
The contract has a clause that blocks ineligible players from taking part in the game.
Clemson isn’t asking for money and isn’t threatening a lawsuit.
School leaders say they simply back the NCAA and their conference on the eligibility question.
Clemson’s administrators and lawyers have spent several days going over every line of the contract to make their point.
LSU’s roster fight keeps growing
LSU hasn’t officially added any pro players to its roster yet.
But a Louisiana judge changed the picture Thursday. The judge gave a group of athletes a preliminary injunction for a fifth year of eligibility.
That group includes players who signed pro contracts and have said they’ll join coach Lane Kiffin’s roster.
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson didn’t hold back when he spoke with Yahoo Sports on Thursday. He said this fight is about fairness for every other team following the rules.
“This is about fairness,” Wilson said. “If LSU wants to change the rules for those players, they can petition the SEC to request a waiver, but going to the courts. … Think of the parade of horribles.
“If LSU wins, every other SEC school can go to their courts and get a different judge to say something. You’d have total chaos and anarchy.”
Wilson said he hasn’t reviewed Clemson’s contract review so he couldn’t comment on it directly.
He does believe the SEC should be free to govern itself and enforce a rule that all 16 university presidents approved, including LSU’s own Wade Rousse just last week in Birmingham.
“Once you become a professional athlete, you are banned,” Wilson told Yahoo Sports. “All other schools are abiding by this rule.”
Wilson plans to be in Baton Rouge for the game and joked he might need extra security once he’s there.
The SEC took the fight to court too
Clemson’s warning is just the newest twist in a wild few weeks. On Thursday the SEC filed a federal lawsuit against LSU along with its president, board and athletic director.
The league wants a judge to let it enforce its own rules if LSU rosters pro players.
Inside that lawsuit the SEC claims LSU and Kiffin ran a plan to recruit pro athletes onto the roster.
At least three players with pro contracts and injunctions have already committed to LSU, including former Ole Miss players Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris.
Wright, a tight end, has been practicing with the team already. LSU still hasn’t said for sure it will add these players to the roster.
Teams must turn in a 105-man roster before the season opener but can add players later in the year if they left roster spots open under an SEC bylaw from April.
The same Louisiana judge who granted the injunction also named LSU, the NCAA and the SEC as defendants.
That means LSU can’t take action that hurts the athletes involved, like refusing to add them after promising a spot.
One attorney for the players said he’d ask the court to hold LSU in contempt if the school backs out.
SEC presidents have reportedly discussed serious punishments for LSU if it adds the players, ranging from a boycott to probation to suspension or even expulsion.
Commissioner Greg Sankey took the matter seriously enough to spend more than three hours testifying on the stand during this week’s hearing.
He isn’t expected at Saturday’s game, which kicks off at 7:30 p.m. on ABC.
