Ole Miss serves LSU’s Princewill Umanmielen court documents midweek in deliberate move ahead of rivalry game
The touted SEC rivalry just took a turn for the petty days ahead of their clash.
Just when we thought the Ole Miss versus LSU rivalry couldn’t get more toxic, Ole Miss decided to stir things up midweek.
Per ESPN’s Pete Thamel, LSU defensive end Princewill Umanmielen was served court documents in the parking lot of the LSU facility from Ole Miss regarding an ongoing lawsuit. LSU reportedly knew Umanmielen would be served documents regarding the case, but they didn’t know when it would happen, and they certainly didn’t believe it was going to be this week.
The lawsuit from Ole Miss is tied to an ongoing dispute regarding Umanmielen’s and LSU offensive lineman Devin Harper’s departures from the program. Ole Miss is alleging that both players signed revenue-sharing agreements on Jan. 3 and then entered the transfer portal on Jan. 20 to follow coach Lane Kiffin to LSU. Ole Miss’s stated intention is to hold LSU accountable for the impacts on their revenue-sharing cap rather than trying to target these specific players.
The timing says everything
The timing of this, regardless of Ole Miss’s stated legal goals, is deliberate. Doing this midweek going into Saturday’s game was meant to antagonize LSU to the largest degree. While Ole Miss might be trying to play mind games with the Tigers’ locker room, I feel like this is a bad choice by the Rebels.
Serving Umanmielen court documents days before a rivalry game is more likely to fire him up than rattle him. The same goes for Harper and Kiffin. If anything, Ole Miss just handed LSU an extra layer of motivation heading into a game that already had plenty of bad blood.
Umanmielen has been unbelievable so far this season, racking up five sacks through LSU’s first two games. He’s playing at an elite level, and poking the bear midweek seems like a questionable strategy at best.
We’ll see how this thing plays out on Saturday, but if the drama keeps building the way it has been, it’s going to be an amazing game. One thing is for sure: Ole Miss better hope the legal strategy works out better than the psychological one, because right now it looks like all they’ve done is give LSU’s best pass rusher another reason to wreak havoc.
