Greg Sankey fought LSU—and won.
The SEC commissioner was hell-bent on preserving his power, and he succeeded. Was it effective? Absolutely. Did LSU eventually cower before the hand that feeds it? Absolutely.
But I still don’t like how the SEC handled this.
What it did to LSU felt dirty and unsavory. It felt like a desperate attempt to maintain control.
Yet it worked. So, I guess, bravo.
It’s not as if LSU created this mess or went out of its way to screw the conference. Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris received a preliminary injunction from a Louisiana court that opened the door for them to play. LSU responded to a legal ruling, yet the SEC treated the school as if it had committed an unforgivable act of betrayal.
I know everyone keeps pointing out that the ruling came from a Louisiana court and claiming something about it smells wrong.
Honestly, I disagree.
I live in Tennessee, and if I were the judge, I absolutely would have ruled in favor of the players, too. One hundred percent.
Why didn’t members of the 2022 recruiting class receive the option of playing a fifth season? It makes zero sense. This entire situation makes no sense.
It reminds me of Johnnie Cochran’s Chewbacca defense in South Park:
It does not make sense!
The conference sued LSU and prepared to consider the extraordinary step of expelling one of its founding members. Faced with that threat, LSU filled its final two roster spots with other players, leaving Wright and Harris off the team.
Of course LSU backed down.
The SEC made it virtually impossible for the school to move forward. Sankey threw what the plaintiffs’ attorneys called a cold cup of gumbo right back in their faces—regardless of what the Louisiana court had ruled.
(Young and the Restless star Susan Walters was a guest on Show Pony Live. She explained why the recent LSU news bothered her at first.)
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It’s not as if another conference offering anything close to the SEC’s television payout was waiting on the other side. LSU had no real leverage. It had to play nice. It had to take whatever was coming its way.
The SEC wasn’t messing around.
As Rick Neuheisel said on our show today, Greg Sankey became Greg “Spankey.”
He spanked LSU for stepping out of line.
Sankey did everything necessary to protect the sanctity of the multimillion-dollar cash machine that is the SEC. He preserved the conference’s authority, kept the door closed to future players attempting to return from the NFL and reminded every member institution who holds the power.
Good for him, I suppose.
But threatening to kick LSU out of the SEC?
That was ridiculous.
It also makes me wonder what might have happened had the conference followed through. Would expelling LSU have strengthened the league—or created cracks so wide that the once-undisputed king of college sports eventually crumbled like the Pac-12, all under Sankey’s watch?
Fortunately for everyone involved, we won’t find out.
At least not yet.
Both sides played an expensive game of chicken, and the SEC won. LSU’s president has now written to Sankey, the Tigers abandoned their plan to roster Wright and Harris, and the immediate threat of expulsion appears to be fading.
The white flag has been waved.
The Bayou Bengals have retreated with their tails tucked between their legs.
Still, I don’t like it.
Wright and Harris are the people getting screwed. A court ruled in their favor, but apparently they are the only two people in college sports for whom a court ruling doesn’t matter.
And I bet Sankey knows, deep down, that the underlying situation is unfair.
The NCAA—which Sankey and the SEC remain a part of—created this problem by changing to a five-year eligibility model without providing comparable relief to players from the 2022 recruiting class.
The legal challenge emerged from that transition, not because LSU suddenly decided it wanted to destroy college football.
Lane Kiffin was right to reference Diego Pavia and Trinidad Chambliss. College sports have spent years granting eligibility through injunctions and courtroom victories.
Sankey constantly asks Congress for help because the NCAA no longer has enforceable national standards. Yet when a court ruling benefited LSU, he suddenly discovered a hard line.
Instead of accepting that the NCAA failed to anticipate this problem, Sankey threw a grenade at LSU to avoid getting hit by the shrapnel.
He won.
His authority remains intact. LSU is back in line, and the SEC’s cash machine continues humming.
Greg “Spankey” protected his power.
That doesn’t mean the way he used it was right.
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Let me know in the comments: Did Sankey protect the SEC—or did the conference go too far in its effort to force LSU back into line?