For the second time this summer, a power conference has gone to court against one of its schools

The Southeastern Conference filed a lawsuit Thursday against LSU, one of its founding members nearly 100 years ago, to prevent the school from allowing players returning from NFL training camps to play on the Tigers’ football team.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Alabama — the SEC’s headquarters — and asks for a court injunction barring LSU from violating the SEC’s First Amendment rights by forcing it to “associate with conduct that is contrary to the conference’s purpose and mission.”

Listed as defendants are LSU, its board of supervisors, school president Wade Rousse, athletic director Verge Ausberry and new coach Lane Kiffin.

The filing came while SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey was testifying at a hearing in a Louisiana state court in Baton Rouge to defend the conference’s ability to enforce its rules against professional athletes playing on its members teams.

Rick Karcher, a faculty athletics representative at Eastern Michigan and former practicing attorney in sports law, said the SEC’s lawsuit serves as a backup legal maneuver in the event the players prevail in state court.

“It’s weird in the sense that these schools are in a partnership and together they sell SEC football … The SEC is just following the natural sequence of events in preparation for the judge in Louisiana to grant a permanent injunction after today’s hearing,” Karcher wrote in an email. “The First Amendment claim gets them in federal court and they need to seek injunctive relief that prevents LSU from putting former pro players on the field, in the event Kiffin wants to do so.”

It is the second time in less than three months that a major conference has taken legal action against one of its own members. The Big 12 filed a federal complaint against Texas Tech on June 15 seeking an injunction allowing the Big 12 to enforce its bylaws and ban quarterback Brendan Sorsby for wagering on sports in violation of rules. That filing was in response to a state judge’s ruling allowing Sorsby to play. Sorsby ended up discontinuing his legal battle and turning his attention to next spring’s NFL draft.

“It’s unusual for a conference to sue one of its flagship schools, and even more unusual to sue them on First Amendment grounds, but this is the second time this has happened this year,” said Gabe Feldman, director of the Tulane Sports Law Center. “But all of this is emblematic of the utter chaos that college sports is dealing with right now and the continued uncertainty regarding eligibility. It also highlights the NCAA’s longstanding argument — it is nearly impossible to have uniform rules if individual judges can dictate who can and cannot participate in college athletics.”

There is some urgency to the SEC’s lawsuit against LSU because it does not involve just one player, and the 11th-ranked Tigers’ season opens Saturday a day after they are required to submit their final 2026 roster to the conference.

The players in question are former Cleveland Browns tight end Dae’Quan Wright, defensive lineman Zxavian Harris and defensive back Blake Cotton. The SEC said LSU has expressed its “unequivocal intent” to place those athletes on LSU’s official football roster.

“The SEC brings this action to vindicate its First Amendment right of expressive association, i.e. its right not to be forced to associate its competitions, brand, and championships with conduct that it has expressly condemned since the SEC’s founding,” the lawsuit said. “The SEC also seeks declaratory and injunctive relief to vindicate the SEC’s right to disassociate from conduct that directly undermines the SEC’s organizational purpose and core values.”

___

Sign up for Top 25 poll alerts here, visit the Top 25 here and see AP’s full college football coverage here