re: Rumor that the SEC will file federal suit tomorrow

No idea whether the federal suit will be filed, but based on the SEC’s filing in state court today, it’s pretty obvious who is in its crosshairs. The filing says it has not taken and will not take any action against any of the athletes. But it maintains that it’s entitled to discipline any of its member institutions that violate its rules. One guess as to who that member school is.

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This is the reason SEC will ultimately have to back down and create rules with clarity and consistency.

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What is unclear about this new rule?

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The SEC announced its institutions are "not permitted to have an athlete on its roster who has:

1. Previously declared for the NFL, NBA, or WNBA draft, and did not appropriately withdraw.

2. Signed a contract with an NFL (or other professional football league), NBA/G-League, or WNBA (or affiliate) team.

3. Been listed on an NFL (or other professional football league), NBA/G-League, or WNBA (or affiliate) roster."

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Sankey details the penalties afforded to him/presidents; says no president voted against the penalties released in memos last week (LSU's Wade Rousse abstained); clarifies SEC is not an NCAA agent; and says permitting pro players would create unfairness for high school athletes.

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How does someone like Dae'quan Wright playing, create unfairness for a high school athlete?

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How does someone like Dae'quan Wright playing, create unfairness for a high school athlete?

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Fo one, his fat arse weight at least three times as much

Heading into federal court seems like the logical next step if state rulings start interfering with internal conference governance. Fast-moving legal challenges like this are setting some wild precedents for college athletics.

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1. New rules and effective timing
2. Their willingness to create exceptions that aren’t universally applied
3. Arguing that playing on a nFL camp roster without a contract is different than doing the same act with a contract.

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If their argument is indeed that they have the right to make their own private organizational rules literally none of this matters.

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The one thing that LSU has done is bring such a brilliant spotlight on the program that they will be the focus on ESPN all season.

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Every player knows every P5 team, this is illogical for that reason alone.

But more importantly, players do not care about brand anymore. At all. They care about NIL $.

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Agree with you with respect to the NCAA. I think its entirely fair to state that their decisions and rules have been arbritary and capricious, especially with respect to the Class of 2022.

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I feel that this fits with the old NCAA eligibility rules more than the new ones.

While it obviously mostly affects members of the 2022 freshmen class who played enough to never redshirt or who never received a medical redshirt, it was not some random choice. They basically made decision that only the student athletes from 2025-2026 who had eligibility remaining after 2025-2026 under prior rules can apply the new rules (or the old rules whichever is most beneficial). They also allowed the new incoming student athletes this fall to have either applied as they likely signed under the old rules with some being early entries. Applying only the age based rules starts for incoming freshmen classes in fall of 2027.

It’s a fairly clear distinction between those who can and cannot use new rule especially considering when decision was made - out of eligibility after 2025-2026 cannot use new rules and those that still had eligibility remaining after 2025-2026 or will be future enrollees can use new rules. Whether that is fair or not to those 2022 freshmen without redshirt years is a different issue. I just don’t find that it was arbitrary.

I also assume that the NCAA would rather be forced to play any of those left out and non-pro members of that class under an injunction that they fought vigorously rather than try to justify adding them up front in the rule or as an official exemption using fairness or comparisons to other classes as the reasoning.

Kudos sir. You made a completely logical assessment of the situation.

If they had included the 22 class, then players from the 21 class would be filing lawsuits.

At this point it would not surprise me if some old man finds a lawyer, or a lawyer finds him, to sue the NCAA for not allowing freshmen to play varsity football until 1972 because he claims it cost him future earnings.

The fact is regardless of when they drew the line a group of players was going to see an opportunity to file lawsuits.

Has anyone ever heard the allegory about killing the goose that laid the golden eggs?

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Pavia won his lawsuit against NCAA in federal court

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Not really. The NCAA granted him a waiver of eligibility after the TRO so his lawsuit became moot. The court never heard his case on the merits