Eli Drinkwitz should be mapping out his game plan against Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Missouri kicks off its football season in five days, yet Drinkwitz’s biggest headache is not depth charts or injuries. It is a wild legal maze: nobody actually knows which players are legally allowed to dress up and step onto the field.
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“I’ve been saying this for three years now, that college football and college athletics is not in a great place,” Eli Drinkwitz said, via SEC Mike. “This stuff is not good for any student-athlete, and it’s a direct reflection of our inability as leaders to come up with a plan… The season’s kicked off, and we do not know what the rules are for eligibility… For us to be operating like this is a complete clown show, and it’s disappointing.”
This chaos hit a boiling point when LSU started aggressively signing former NFL players who were cut from pro training camps. Following the aggressive transfer portal playbook pioneered by Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, LSU used a local Louisiana court order to bypass NCAA rules. That bold move completely broke the SEC’s traditional enforcement system.
On August 29, the SEC officially backed down. Conference attorneys notified lawyers that the league will temporarily comply with state court restraining orders. They will not punish member schools for putting former pro athletes on their rosters for now, leaving roster management in complete limbo right before kickoff.
Texas A&M coach Mike Elko was equally furious about the late timing. Speaking just hours before opening kickoff across the nation, Elko questioned how a major conference could be figuring out basic roster rules while games were actively being played on television.
“It’s a statement about where we are from a governance standpoint that we are having conversations about what the rules are going to be regarding roster management,” he said. “There’s games tonight, there’s games Saturday, and we’re not even really sure what the rules are around who can play on our teams this fall.”
LSU is at the center of it. Dae’Quan Wright, a former Ole Miss TE, went undrafted, spent time with the Eagles and Browns, was waived Aug. 24 and signed with the Tigers that same day. DT Zxavian Harris also played at Ole Miss before signing with the Saints as an undrafted free agent. He was waived on August 8 and is a Louisiana plaintiff. Lane Kiffin has made his thinking pretty clear.
“At the end of the day, because of these rulings, they’re either going to play for you, or they’re going to play for someone else around the country,” he said. “So we’ve made the decision to recruit them like probably most people are.”
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey sees the issue differently. In an Aug. 20 affidavit, he argued that allowing former professionals back into college could disrupt the sport, create competitive advantages, and take opportunities away from younger players. But the lawsuits keep moving. Jack Pyburn, another Louisiana plaintiff, could potentially return to LSU if Tampa Bay releases him.
Missouri has already lived through the uncertainty after DT Sterling Webb secured a temporary restraining order in July and returned to the Tigers. Eli Drinkwitz wants Congress to provide the missing framework. He has backed the Protect College Sports Act, which would establish national rules covering transfers and eligibility. The Senate left Washington for its August recess without voting on it, pushing the issue into September. Until then, coaches are left playing a different kind of waiting game.