College football has spent the better part of the last several years redefining what it means to be a college athlete. NIL changed the financial structure. The transfer portal changed roster construction. Lawsuits have repeatedly challenged the NCAA’s authority over eligibility.

Now, apparently, we have reached the point where an NFL player can get cut by a professional team and head back to campus.

When I first wrote about this situation, the controversy centered around Dae’Quan Wright, the former Ole Miss tight end who went undrafted in the 2026 NFL Draft, spent time with the Philadelphia Eagles and Cleveland Browns, and was ultimately waived by Cleveland. A Louisiana judge had granted Wright and other players temporary relief related to the NCAA’s new eligibility rules, creating a potential pathway for him to play another college season.

His next destination? A reunion with Lane Kiffin at LSU. Since then, this story has somehow become even more ridiculous.

LSU isn’t merely looking at Wright anymore. Former Ole Miss defensive tackle Zxavian Harris, who spent time with the New Orleans Saints, has also been pursuing a return to college football with LSU. The Tigers have reportedly explored other recently released NFL players as well, while former LSU defensive end Jack Pyburn might have been another candidate had the Kansas City Chiefs not claimed him off waivers.

We’re now at the point where Clemson coach Dabo Swinney joked that preparing for LSU has required his staff to study the Browns, Cowboys, Saints and Buccaneers.

That sentence alone should tell us how absurd this has become.

So We’re Recruiting Players From the NFL Now?

Before getting into the larger issue, let’s make something clear: this isn’t really about Dae’Quan Wright.

I don’t blame Wright for wanting to play football. If a court tells him he’s eligible and LSU offers him an opportunity, I understand why he would take it. Wright is trying to continue his career, and players are naturally going to pursue whatever opportunities are available to them.

My problem is that the opportunity exists in the first place.

Wright played four college seasons, declared for the NFL Draft, signed a professional contract and participated in an NFL offseason before being waived. Now, because of the ongoing legal challenges surrounding NCAA eligibility, he could theoretically turn around and play college football again.

At what point do we decide that someone’s college career is actually over? Because if declaring for the NFL Draft, signing an NFL contract and participating in an NFL training camp aren’t enough, I’m genuinely not sure what is.

The reaction from coaches around the country demonstrates just how uncomfortable this precedent has made the sport. Ohio State’s Ryan Day expressed opposition to the idea while acknowledging the competitive reality coaches face: if the rules permit something and rival programs take advantage of it, everyone else eventually has to consider doing the same.

That’s exactly how college football got into so many of its current messes. One program finds an advantage, another follows, and eventually something that seemed absurd six months earlier becomes standard operating procedure.

Fortunately, the conferences finally started drawing a line. Unfortunately, even that hasn’t been simple.

The Conferences Finally Said Enough

The Big Ten was among the first to act, adopting a rule prohibiting athletes from competing at conference schools after signing professional contracts, appearing on professional rosters or declaring for a professional draft without properly withdrawing.

The SEC soon followed.

Its rule prevents an athlete from competing in the conference if that player previously declared for the NFL, NBA or WNBA Draft without withdrawing, signed a contract with a corresponding professional league or appeared on a professional roster. The policy passed unanimously, 16-0. The Big 12 and ACC have since adopted similar restrictions, meaning all four power conferences have now moved to prevent this from becoming the new normal.

Good. In fact, I would make the standard even simpler: once you officially declare for the NFL Draft and pass the withdrawal deadline, your college football career is over.

If a player explores his options, receives feedback and withdraws before the established deadline, I don’t have a fundamental problem with that. That’s exactly what the process is there for.

But once you’ve chosen the NFL, that’s it. You’re a professional football player now.

You don’t get to wait and see whether you’re drafted. You don’t get to sign an NFL contract, go through rookie minicamp, spend an entire summer competing against NFL players, get released and then decide college sounds pretty good again.

There has to be a point at which the decision means something.

Then the SEC Brought Out the Hammer

The SEC didn’t stop at simply banning the practice.

Conference officials reportedly approved penalties so severe that they immediately got everyone’s attention. A school violating the policy could face a fine equivalent to 50 percent of that sport’s annual budget, lose conference voting privileges, and—perhaps most notably—the head coach could be suspended for half of the season.

Commissioner Greg Sankey was also reportedly granted authority to impose additional penalties if necessary.

The penalties passed 15-0. Guess who abstained? LSU. Of course they did.

If the SEC wanted to demonstrate how seriously it viewed this issue, threatening to suspend a head coach for half a season certainly accomplished that. We’re no longer talking about a slap on the wrist or a fine that an SEC athletic department can pull out of the couch cushions. Imagine LSU adding an NFL player, putting him on the field and then losing Lane Kiffin for six games because of it.

That’s a deterrent. But because this is modern college football, naturally the story couldn’t possibly end there.

A judge subsequently issued a temporary restraining order preventing the SEC from enforcing its new policy against the players involved in the litigation. For the moment, the conference that just overwhelmingly voted to prohibit former professionals from returning to college may not be able to punish one of its own members for doing exactly that. A hearing is scheduled to determine whether that temporary protection remains in place.

And if you want a perfect illustration of the governance problem facing college football, there it is.

The NCAA makes a rule. Someone sues. A conference makes another rule. Someone sues. A judge blocks enforcement. Everyone waits to see what they’re allowed to do next.

This isn’t governance. It’s improvisation.

Lane Kiffin Isn’t Backing Down

To absolutely nobody’s surprise, Lane Kiffin remains right in the middle of it.

Kiffin previously defended pursuing players like Wright with a pretty straightforward argument: if LSU doesn’t take advantage of the opportunity, somebody else will.

Since then, he’s gone a step further by explaining that he actually took the question to LSU’s player leadership committee. According to Kiffin, he asked his players what they thought about adding guys who had spent the summer competing for NFL jobs.

Their response was apparently emphatic: if they can help us win, bring them in.

One LSU player even compared it to how things work at the professional level. That’s certainly an interesting response. And in a weird way, it perfectly demonstrates the problem.

We’re talking about college football, and the defense being offered by the players themselves is essentially, “Well, that’s how professional football works.”

Exactly. That’s the point.

If we’ve reached a place where the justification for an NFL player returning to college is that college football should operate like the NFL, then what exactly are we pretending college football still is?

Kiffin also argued that his responsibility is to make decisions in the best interests of the players already in LSU’s locker room rather than worrying about how those decisions affect his reputation or how they’re perceived nationally.

I understand the competitive logic.

If the courts say Wright is eligible, why should LSU voluntarily put itself at a disadvantage while another program takes advantage of the same ruling?

That’s where I understand Kiffin’s argument.

It’s also where I still think he’s wrong.

At some point, somebody has to care about more than finding the next competitive advantage. There have to be boundaries surrounding what college football actually is.

This should be one of them.

Dabo Swinney Said What Everyone Is Thinking

Now Dabo Swinney has entered the conversation, and considering Clemson opens its season against LSU, he has a particularly interesting perspective on all of this.

Swinney called the situation “embarrassing.”

He made an important distinction, too. Like me, he isn’t blaming the players for taking advantage of opportunities the system presents. His frustration is with a system that has allowed college football to reach this point in the first place.

Swinney joked that Clemson’s preparation for LSU now includes studying NFL teams because some of the players the Tigers could potentially add spent training camp with professional organizations. He also summed up the broader governance problem by arguing that college football essentially has no enforceable rules because whenever an organization attempts to enforce one, someone can find a judge willing to block it.

That’s the part that should concern everyone.

Dabo Swinney has certainly been resistant to plenty of changes in college football over the years. He’s been criticized for his approach to the transfer portal, NIL and the changing nature of roster construction.

But this isn’t simply Dabo yelling at the clouds. Clemson is preparing to play LSU this weekend, and its coaching staff legitimately has to consider film from NFL preseason camps while evaluating players who might appear on LSU’s roster.

How can anyone say that with a straight face and pretend this is normal?

Declaring for the Draft Should Mean Something

Players entering the NFL Draft aren’t making that decision blindly.

They have agents and advisers. They receive feedback from scouts. They see mock drafts. They know their own film and production. They generally have some understanding of whether they’re viewed as a first-round pick, Day 3 selection, priority undrafted free agent or long shot.

There is risk involved in declaring. There should be.

Choosing to pursue professional football means accepting the possibility that it won’t work out. Maybe you don’t get drafted. Maybe you sign as an undrafted free agent and get released during camp. Maybe injuries derail your opportunity.

That’s professional sports.

College football shouldn’t become an insurance policy against an unsuccessful attempt at making an NFL roster.

That’s not me saying Wright—or anyone in his situation—is a failure as a person or even as a football player. Making it far enough to sign an NFL contract already puts someone in extraordinarily rare company.

But for lack of a better term, if your first attempt at an NFL career “fails,” the answer shouldn’t be returning to college and trying again.

Imagine where that road eventually leads. A player declares early, goes undrafted and returns to college. Another signs an undrafted contract, spends three months with an NFL organization, gets cut and returns. Another spends a few weeks on a practice squad before being released and argues that his circumstances aren’t materially different.

Where exactly is the cutoff?

That’s why the cutoff needs to come much earlier. You declare for the Draft, pass the withdrawal deadline and leave college football.

Clean. Understandable. Final.

What About the Players Already on College Rosters?

There’s another element of this story that shouldn’t be overlooked: the players who never left.

Imagine you’re a tight end who spent the entire offseason at LSU. You went through spring practice. You attended meetings. You lifted with the team. You learned the offense and competed for snaps.

Then, days before the season, your coaching staff has an opportunity to bring in someone who just spent training camp with an NFL organization.

Good luck.

Texas coach Steve Sarkisian raised essentially this same concern, calling the practice morally wrong because of what it means for players who spent the entire offseason working inside the program only to potentially lose their opportunity to someone returning from an NFL camp.

And yes, Kiffin says his leadership committee supports the additions. I respect that he asked them. But that doesn’t solve the larger issue.

College roster construction is already brutal enough. Between the transfer portal and NIL, players can lose their place on a depth chart virtually overnight. Allowing coaches to start browsing NFL cut lists for late-August reinforcements adds another completely unnecessary layer.

Imagine where this goes if it becomes normalized.

NFL cutdown day suddenly becomes another transfer portal window.

College coaches start keeping lists of players in NFL camps who might become available. Agents begin contacting college programs while their clients are sitting on the roster bubble. Programs leave scholarship or roster spots open anticipating NFL cuts.

We’re already dangerously close to that reality.

The SEC’s Hypocrisy Doesn’t Make Its Position Wrong

I also think there’s something worth acknowledging about the SEC’s language throughout this controversy.

The conference has talked about maintaining a distinction between college and professional athletes and preventing the line between the two from becoming blurred.

That’s a little rich.

College football itself has spent the last several years obliterating that distinction.

NIL means players can earn enormous sums of money. Revenue sharing has pushed the sport even further toward a professional model. The transfer portal increasingly resembles free agency. Players negotiate compensation and opportunities while programs essentially operate general-manager departments dedicated to roster acquisition.

College athletes aren’t amateurs in the traditional sense anymore.

Personally, I’ve never loved that transformation, but I also understand we’re past the point where everything can simply be undone.

Still, hypocrisy doesn’t automatically make the SEC’s underlying argument wrong. There has to be some distinction between college football and the NFL. If signing an NFL contract doesn’t provide that distinction, what possibly could?

College Football Has to Mean Something

I’ve made this argument before because it continues coming up in different forms: college football needs some permanence.

There can be player empowerment and rules. There can be NIL and roster stability. There can be a transfer portal and meaningful commitments.

And there can absolutely be a professional pathway that, once chosen, ends your eligibility to participate in college athletics.

Nick Saban spent years warning that college football was moving into dangerous territory without clearly defined, universally enforced rules. Paul Finebaum has repeatedly sounded similar alarms. Swinney is now describing the current environment as embarrassing.

Finebaum’s original assessment suddenly doesn’t sound quite as dramatic as it did a week ago.

“College football has officially plunged into the abyss.”

When I first heard that, I thought the language was strong but the sentiment was right.

Now we’ve reached a point where conferences are threatening to suspend coaches for half a season, judges are preventing those conferences from enforcing their own rules, coaches are studying NFL preseason film to prepare for college opponents, and players released from NFL teams are potentially joining national championship contenders days before the season begins.

Maybe “abyss” isn’t that far off.

The Conferences Got This Right — Now They Need the Authority to Enforce It

The most encouraging development since this controversy began is that the major conferences seem remarkably unified.

The Big Ten said no. The SEC said no. The Big 12 said no. The ACC said no.

That’s significant because this isn’t simply a bunch of old-school coaches complaining about change. The conferences themselves recognize the competitive and structural problems this could create.

The problem is that passing rules doesn’t accomplish much if those rules can’t survive the next lawsuit.

That’s ultimately where this entire conversation leads.

College football desperately needs a governing structure capable of creating clear rules that apply equally across the sport and can actually be enforced. We can’t continue operating in an environment where eligibility standards change depending on which conference you’re in, which state you’re playing in or which judge heard the latest lawsuit.

Dae’Quan Wright shouldn’t be the villain of this story.

Neither should Lane Kiffin.

They’re operating within a system that has somehow created this possibility. Kiffin’s job is to win football games, and Wright’s job is to find the best opportunity available to continue playing football.

The system is the problem.

College football has already blurred enough lines between amateur and professional sports. Allowing players to leave for the NFL, sign professional contracts, participate in NFL camps, get cut and then return to campus doesn’t blur that line—it practically erases it.

And once that becomes normal, good luck putting the toothpaste back in the tube.

So yes, Finebaum called it an abyss. Dabo called it embarrassing. Ryan Day doesn’t like it. Steve Sarkisian doesn’t like it. The Big Ten, SEC, ACC and Big 12 have all taken action to stop it.

Maybe college football should listen.

Because if recruiting players back from the NFL becomes another normal part of roster construction, we’re not merely changing college football anymore.

We’re eliminating one of the last meaningful distinctions between college football and the league every one of these players was trying to reach in the first place.

When you leave college football for the NFL, you leave college football.

At a time when this sport seems incapable of agreeing on where any of its lines should be drawn, this should be one of the easiest.