A Louisiana judge has thrown the NCAA eligibility case into even more uncertainty and chaos with a two-part ruling on Thursday. East Baton Rouge Parish Judge William Jorden on Thursday night granted the new request for an injunction against the NCAA by dozens of players seeking a fifth year of college eligibility. This came just hours after he ruled that the Southeastern Conference could not be an added-on co-defendant for all of the plaintiffs, but only a small handful of them. He then, during his late-night session, enjoined all defendants against taking action against the athletes.
And while all that was happening, the SEC was in federal court in Alabama filing a new lawsuit against LSU, its athletic department, and head football coach Lane Kiffin.
The drama started early Thursday. Late in the week, attorneys for the 51 plaintiff athletes added the SEC as a co-defendant with the NCAA. The SEC had come out with an updated dictate on previously existing rules regarding athletes who leave college to go to the pros. It stated that, as those athletes are not eligible to play because they went to the NFL, NBA, etc., any school that took them back and allowed them to play would face a litany of punishments. Among the list of punishments was a suspension for half the season for the head coach and significant financial fines for the school.
The rules are really hyper-focused on LSU and Kiffin. Two of the plaintiffs, Dae'Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris, are back with LSU after having been cut by their NFL teams during training camp. Kiffin intends to play them Saturday against Clemson.
Judge Jorden ruled on Thursday that the SEC could not be a defendant with each plaintiff, as only seven of them currently had ties to the conference. Yet, instead of ordering a re-filing for the other 44 plaintiffs with just the NCAA as a defendant, he continued on with the nine-hour-long hearing.
Wright was one of the witnesses who took the stand for the plaintiffs. He told the court about the NIL and revenue-sharing money available to him. He said he should be allowed back for a fifth year to make that money, after the NCAA enacted its new five-for-five eligibility rules in June.
Also attending the hearing was Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, who filed a brief in the case on behalf of the athletes. She received notice from her office, while she was in the Baton Rouge courtroom, that the SEC had filed its lawsuit against LSU in federal court. With Judge Jorden not allowing cell phones in his court, the buzz quickly spread about the new case in federal court. During a break in the Baton Rouge hearing, Murrill called the lawsuit against LSU "legal garbage."
With a Friday deadline looming for schools to submit their final rosters for the year to the NCAA and their conferences, Judge Jorden went well into the night before issuing his second ruling. Even with the SEC no longer being a defendant in the matter of 44 of the athletes, Judge Jorden granted the plaintiff's motion for the new injunction against the NCAA and the SEC. And for good measure, he added LSU, even though the school supports the plaintiffs. Judge Jorden ordered that any action taken against the eligibility of the athletes while the injunction was in effect would be considered contempt.
In his ruling, Judge Jorden also said he has considered levying sanctions against the NCAA and the SEC, even though it is unclear as to whether either of them has violated any current court order.
Last Word on College Football has been using two contract law experts as sources during all of this eligibility litigation for the last four months. Both have tried cases in state and federal courts.
We spoke with one of them yesterday after the first ruling from Judge Jorden about where the SEC was a defendant and where it was not. The attorney, as has been the case, asks that we not use their name. They told us that the judge should be requiring a new filing for the forty-four plaintiffs with just the NCAA as the defendant.
When that did not happen, we checked back in later during the evening. "The judge clearly just wanted to be heard from the bench on all of this. Letting improper paperwork be in the docket file is a sign he wanted to make a ruling on the grander, larger scale. No one had heard of Judge Jorden before this case. Now they have."
During our second check-in Thursday night, the attorney said, "When there is a decision as to who is and is not a defendant, and it is different than what the plaintiffs filed, there must be changes made. But in following the hearing, it seems clear that Judge Jorden is concerned about the timelines with the start of games this weekend and the NCAA roster deadline."
Tony Clayton is one of a handful of attorneys for the plaintiffs, the athletes, in the case. After Judge Jordan's late-night ruling, he told a gathering of media outside the courthouse, "It's not about coach Kiffin. It's not about LSU. It's about treating these kids fairly. Today, justice was served. And justice was served to the SEC. It was served like a cold cup of gumbo. And that judge forced him to eat it." The SEC was a defendant only as it pertained to seven athletes.
Clayton also took issue with the SEC filing the federal lawsuit in its home state, referring to Alabama as "Our nemesis."
The NCAA is expected to file an appeal by sometime Tuesday. Our legal counsel source told us Thursday night, "The paperwork is probably already written. As odd as the two hearings were, these things happen in Louisiana. And the NCAA has been losing the injunction cases at the lower level, and then getting stays on appeal. So, they probably wrote the appeal already and are just filling in the details now."
Attorneys general in South Carolina and Georgia have taken to social media in recent days urging the SEC to punish LSU, or any school in the conference, that uses players who had already spent any time at the professional level. For the moment on this day, doing so would seem to violate Judge Jorden's order. By next week, who knows?
Main Image: Reuters, Syndication: The Indianapolis Star
