Latest SEC giant move might burn down LSU’s place in the conference, and the Tigers would have Lane Kiffin’s mouth to thank for it
The SEC just cranked the seriousness of their threats to LSU up to 11 and broke off the knob.
The LSU Tigers were the talk of college football going into Week 1 for all of the wrong reasons.
The program has been under fire for weeks for its readiness to bring back NFL signees Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris to the college game. A Baton Rouge judge sided with Wright, Harris, and a number of other players and granted them injunctive relief against the NCAA and the SEC, giving them the ability to return.
As a result, the SEC has made open threats about potentially kicking LSU out of the conference, which is something you’d think that no program in the SEC would ever in a million years put itself in a position to have happen.
But here we are, and in fact, things are worse now than they were last week.
The Tigers were absolutely incredible on the field in a 51-10 win over the Clemson Tigers on Saturday night in Baton Rouge. They CLEARLY had no need for a handful of NFL players.
And, on that note, Lane Kiffin even had some fun during the halftime show on exactly that vein, making a quip during his halftime interview, “imagine if we had pro players.”
It appears that struck a nerve. On Tuesday, the SEC filed an amended complaint in federal court against LSU addressing the potential expulsion of LSU as a member school, as Yahoo! Sports’ Ross Dellenger noted.
ESPN’s Pete Thamel noted that the amended complaint makes specific reference to Kiffin’s aforementioned halftime quip.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, per Dellenger, the SEC has scheduled a meeting for Thursday to decide on whether to expel LSU under the conference’s bylaws.
SEC set to decide on Tuesday whether to expel LSU from the conference
It’s truly astounding that we have arrived at this place. LSU is one of the marquee names on the college football and baseball worlds, but no one can be bigger than the conference. The SEC has plenty of star power and big-name programs in Alabama, Texas, Georgia, Oklahoma, and others.
If you’re asking for my opinion, I don’t think the SEC will vote them out, but I do think it’s a tactic to get LSU to back off and shape up. That’s both with what the school does with rostering/implementing returning NFL players as well as getting Kiffin and the rest of the university to start handling the situation with more respect than they have.
We’ll see what happens this week, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for a pink slip to be on its way. Still, it’s time for Kiffin and LSU to grow up.
