Jeff Landry has watched college football’s eligibility fight bounce from the NCAA to courtrooms and now into SEC boardrooms. Louisiana’s governor thinks the conference picked the worst moment to draw a harder line.
Landry blasted the SEC as LSU weighs what to do with players who regained NCAA eligibility through court orders but now face a separate conference rule keeping former professionals out.
Jeff Landry Says SEC Created the Problem It Is Now Policing
“This whole thing is ridiculous. Don’t hate the player, hate the game,” Landry said in a statement published by Front Office Sports reporter Amanda Christovich in an X post.
He argued that the NCAA and Congress had opportunities to set clearer standards before courts began producing different eligibility outcomes, then saved his sharpest criticism for the SEC’s timing.
“Now the SEC is creating a legal mess over athletes it told were out of eligibility, only to change the rules afterward,” Landry said. “You can’t tell athletes their college careers are over, watch them move on, change the rules later, and then punish them for not predicting the future.”
I asked Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry’s office for his perspective on the pending battle between LSU and the SEC.
His full statement: “This whole thing is ridiculous. Don’t hate the player, hate the game. I’ve been saying for a year that college sports need to be fixed. The NCAA…
— Amanda Christovich (@achristovichh) August 26, 2026
The immediate LSU issue involves former Ole Miss tight end Dae’Quan Wright and defensive tackle Zxavian Harris. Both were members of the high school Class of 2022, exhausted four college seasons, entered the professional ranks, and later received temporary relief from a Louisiana court.
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The SEC unanimously adopted an SEC policy Tuesday barring schools from rostering athletes who signed professional contracts, appeared on professional rosters, or entered certain professional drafts without properly withdrawing.
LSU supported that rule, but Wade Rousse abstained Wednesday when the league approved a penalty structure that could include a half-season suspension for a head coach and a fine worth 50% of the sport’s annual operating budget.
Landry Points to Diego Pavia and Trinidad Chambliss
Landry specifically invoked Diego Pavia and Trinidad Chambliss, two SEC quarterbacks whose eligibility fights reached court. “The SEC accepted the courts’ decisions on Diego Pavia and Trinidad Chambliss. Why is this different?” he asked.
There is an important distinction. Pavia’s eligibility case challenged how junior college seasons counted toward eligibility, while Chambliss won an eligibility injunction after the NCAA denied his medical-waiver request. Neither situation involved a player returning from an NFL roster, which is what the SEC’s new policy targets.
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Landry’s argument is less that the cases are identical and more that athletes should not be punished after courts changed what they reasonably believed their eligibility options were.
LSU has obvious football motivation to keep fighting. Wright caught 39 passes for 635 yards and five touchdowns in 2025, while his 80.6 PFN TE Impact grade ranked No. 20 nationally.
The legal question is now bigger than whether Kiffin can add another veteran target. A court can say an athlete is eligible under NCAA rules while the SEC can still say that athlete cannot play in its conference. Landry believes that collision was avoidable, and LSU may be the program that forces someone to resolve it.
