Attorney Tom Mars doesn’t think LSU should get too comfortable with the ruling it already has in hand.
A Louisiana judge sided with the Tigers and cleared the way for former NFL players Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris to compete this fall.
Mars says that win could be temporary, because the SEC still has a couple of ways to fight back and neither one requires accepting the state court’s decision as the end of the story.
LSU brought Wright and Harris in after both spent time trying to make NFL rosters before turning back toward college football. A conference rule stands in the way of that plan.
Sign a pro contract, show up on the wrong roster or skip out on a draft the right way and a player is done in the SEC, no matter what a state court says.
The Louisiana ruling gave LSU cover to play both players anyway, at least for now.
That’s the part Mars is warning people not to treat as settled.
He says the conference could go straight into federal court on its own, or it could challenge the state ruling through the appeals process and ask a higher court to freeze it while that appeal gets sorted out.
Either path would put LSU right back in the same spot it’s trying to escape.
The @SEC legal strategy seems blindingly obvious. The Conference will take action either in federal court or by appealing and asking the state appeals courts to stay whatever lower court injunctions have been issued in favor of former NFL players – or, more likely, they’ll do… https://t.co/Z6lynhB8nr
— Tom Mars (@TomMarsLaw) August 27, 2026
The Tigers aren’t the first program to test this
Mars pointed to the Big 12’s fight with quarterback Brendan Sorsby as the closest thing to a preview.
A Texas judge handed Sorsby a short-term win of his own, and the Big 12 responded by suing in federal court to protect its authority to punish any school that kept him on the field regardless.
If the SEC follows that same script against LSU, the Louisiana ruling stops being the last word and becomes just the opening round.
LSU already knows what’s riding on this beyond Wright and Harris.
Get caught breaking the new rule and a head coach could lose half a season on the sideline while the program pays a fine that wipes out half of what that sport spends in a year.
Fourteen other schools voted for that penalty structure without blinking. LSU didn’t join them, choosing to abstain instead of putting its name behind the plan.
LSU’s legal ground isn’t as solid as it looks
Wright and Harris have their own lawyers making a bigger case than just their two roster spots.
Their argument stretches the Louisiana ruling past individual eligibility, treating it as something that ties the SEC’s hands on policy across the board.
Mars sees it differently. In his view the conference hasn’t done anything close to defying a court order yet, and he’s said so directly.
He’s also drawing a clear line between what he personally believes will happen next and what he actually knows.
Nobody inside the SEC has briefed him on Sankey’s next legal step, and the league itself hasn’t said a word publicly about what it plans to do.
None of this touches Ole Miss the way it touches LSU, even though Wright and Harris wore Rebel colors before trying the NFL.
That baggage left Oxford back in December on a flight bound for Baton Rouge, and it’s LSU’s problem to carry now.
The Tigers have a case in their favor today, but if Mars is right about the SEC holding a card it hasn’t played yet, that favorable ruling might not survive the fall.
