Ole Miss just served former Rebel-turned-LSU starter Princewill Umanmielen court papers days before he and Lane Kiffin return
The LSU Tigers and Lane Kiffin are just days away from their return to Oxford, but as you will see, the Ole Miss Rebels are moving forward with a serious legal matter.
The LSU Tigers and Ole Miss Rebels are days away from kickoff, and the gamesmanship has already reached a level few could have predicted. Forget bulletin board material or coach-speak. Ole Miss appears to have taken game week mind games to an entirely different stratosphere by serving LSU defender Princewill Umanmielen with court papers in a parking lot outside the Tigers’ football facility on the Wednesday morning of game week.
ESPN’s Pete Thamel broke the news. As Thamel reported, Umanmielen was served with court papers Tuesday related to the Ole Miss lawsuit against him, according to court records. He received the papers in the parking lot outside the LSU football facility on Tuesday.
Thamel added that Ole Miss, when asked for a statement, said they didn’t have any update on the matter and deferred to their initial statement, but he did add “LSU officials said they were generally aware that Ole Miss officials were attempting to serve Umanmielen prior to this week.”
The timing raises eyebrows, but it was planned
On the surface, the lawsuit itself is not new. The legal dispute stems from the manner in which the defensive end departed Ole Miss and joined LSU, part of a broader exodus of players who left the Rebels to join Lane Kiffin’s program at LSU. That situation has created an ongoing legal mess involving the NCAA, Ole Miss, LSU, and the SEC. The substance of the lawsuit and its eventual resolution will play out in due time.
But the substance is not what makes this story noteworthy. The timing does.
It seems as if Ole Miss waited until Wednesday morning of game week to serve papers on a player who is actively preparing to face them on the field, but as we saw in ESPN’s report, LSU had been preparing for this. Still, if you’re a player locked in on your preparation for one of the most heated rivalry matchups in recent college football history, and someone walks up to you in a parking lot and hands you legal documents from the university you’re about to play against, that might get inside your head at least a little bit.
Could this affect Umanmielen?
The lawsuit is a serious legal matter, and the way he left Ole Miss for LSU is wrapped up in a broader dispute that multiple parties will have to sort out. None of that changes based on when the papers were served.
What it does change is the mental state of a player heading into a massive game. Game week is about routine, focus, and preparation. LSU now has a player dealing with a legal distraction at the worst possible moment,
This feels like a calculated move, but that is likely coincidental
Ole Miss choosing the parking lot of LSU’s football facility during game week may feel intentional and like a deliberate attempt to rattle a key player before he takes the field against his former team, but based on the expected timeline, it appears coincidental.
LSU and Lane Kiffin’s squad will need to block out the noise and focus on what happens between the lines Saturday. The Rebels, though, may have already landed the first blow of the week before a single snap has been played.
