Rich Reacts to the SEC’s Unanimous Vote to Ban Former NFL Players from Returning to CFB

Nobody saw this coming, and Rich means nobody. Not on the craziest day anyone in this business has had.

The NFL as a feeder system for college football.

It has always run the other direction. College is now operated like pro football anyway, with general managers and contracts, no unions, rules that are only sort of rules, and portals that open and close.

The mechanism, as Rich understands it without having read the fine print, is that college football created a rule giving players five years of eligibility inside a five-year window. A judge in Louisiana then ruled that players from the 2022 and 2023 seasons, whom the new rule did not cover, should benefit too. That opened a portal to men who had already turned pro.

LSU and Lane Kiffin are the visible face of it, but Texas took one and others are shopping.

Rich's sympathy has been consistent all week, and it is not with the coaches or the returning pros. It is with players already on those rosters who were promised playing time, earned it, and are now watching their fall go uncertain because somebody got cut in August.

Which is why Kirby Smart's answer landed.

Asked whether Georgia would dive into that portal, Smart said no. "We're not currently evaluating anybody that's on NFL rosters," he said, then made it a values question rather than a rules question. His players earned their opportunities through an offseason, a summer program and a hard fall camp, and each program has to decide whether an upgrade is worth replacing men who did that work.

"Some people feel like that gives them an opportunity to be better and doesn't change their culture, then more power to them."

Then the SEC removed the choice. A day after that press conference, the conference joined the Big Ten in shutting the door, 16 to nothing. Presidents, chancellors and athletic directors voted unanimously to give commissioner Greg Sankey full authority to enforce it, with penalties.

Per Pat Forde of Sports Illustrated, those penalties are serious. A half-season suspension for the head coach. A fine equal to 50 percent of the budget of the sport that takes the player. Revoked SEC voting privileges on business matters. And latitude for the commissioner to add more.

It covers returns from the NFL, the NBA and the WNBA, which means it lands squarely on the highest revenue sports.

Here is the part Rich could not get past. LSU is one of the 16.

The school voted for this. Which raises the question of whether what the football and basketball programs are doing is actually in concert with the president, the athletic director or the chancellor, and Rich finds it hard to believe it is not, since they hired Kiffin precisely to do things like this.

Kiffin's defense is reasonable on its face. Judges granted these players a fifth year, they entered the portal, they are available to recruit, and they are going to play somewhere. He also insisted it is wrong to criticize the players.

Then Rich read the CBS Sports report, double bylined by John Talty and Chris Hummer.

Per that reporting, Kiffin and LSU reached out to multiple players on NFL rosters, or to their representation, in an effort to get them to bring a lawsuit against the NCAA and return to school. That includes some of the players who ended up in the Louisiana suit, which sources noted was not tried in Baton Rouge by accident.

"Am I picking up what I'm reading here?" Rich asked. That a program spotted a legal loophole and went looking for plaintiffs.

The desk had a follow-up question. Is LSU paying the legal bills?

So now, to run a college football program, you need a general manager, someone running NIL, recruiters, facilities, and a legal team sharp enough to identify a loophole and invite young men to sue their way onto your roster.

"Is this really what we want to be doing?"

There was a coda. Todd Monken had joked that he finally understood why Kiffin called him about a tight end who dressed despite the medical staff saying he was not healthy. Kiffin flatly denied it, saying he does not know Monken, does not have his number, and that maybe someone called claiming to be him.

Monken then walked it back, and did it well. One of his staff had gotten a text, and he used Kiffin's name without following through, which he should not have done.

"I'm not mad at anybody," Monken said. The player got hurt, he is going back to college, he is a good kid, and LSU's job is to get the best players they can.

Sean McVay's reaction to all of it remains the most efficient summary anyone has produced.

"I feel like I took a freaking gummy."