Last updated: Saturday, September 5, 2026, game day in Baton Rouge. LSU hosts Clemson at 7:30 PM ET on ABC.
LSU left Wright and Harris off the roster. The 105 man roster LSU sent to the SEC office Friday has 103 names on it, and neither Dae’Quan Wright nor Zxavian Harris is one of them, per ESPN’s Pete Thamel. Both remain enrolled and can be added at any point in the season; the two open spots are sitting there. Wright had said Thursday night he expected to play Saturday against Clemson. Instead he will watch. LSU has not explained the roster decision itself beyond Rousse’s general statement.
Why it likely happened. Two things landed Friday. Clemson’s general counsel emailed LSU’s general counsel to note that using either player could breach the game contract between the schools, per Yahoo Sports. And the SEC’s federal suit against LSU, Lane Kiffin and school administrators, filed Thursday in Alabama, is still live and untouched by the Louisiana ruling. Rather than make the Clemson game the test case, LSU is waiting for more clarity from the courts. Neither player was realistically going to be a factor Saturday: Harris has not practiced because of a foot injury and Wright had practiced twice.
Judge Jorden ruled for the players Thursday evening. After a hearing of roughly nine hours, including more than three hours of testimony from Greg Sankey, the East Baton Rouge judge converted the temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction. The order bars the NCAA and the SEC from punishing any school that plays the named plaintiffs while the case proceeds, and it enjoins LSU from blocking them. Plaintiffs’ attorney Ryan Downton had said he would seek contempt if LSU rostered the players and later removed them; LSU never rostering them in the first place is a different question that has not been tested. Full story on the SEC suit here.
The SEC is appealing. Attorneys for the conference said Thursday night they will file an appeal as soon as possible. The federal suit in Alabama is the other track.
All four power conferences have bans. The Big 12 and ACC followed the Big Ten and SEC within 48 hours. LSU abstained from the SEC vote. The SEC’s rule is currently unenforceable against the Louisiana plaintiffs under the court order; the rule itself remains on the books.
Jack Pyburn is out, and out of the lawsuit. Kansas City claimed him off waivers August 31 and he withdrew his claim to stay in the NFL.
What LSU still has. Junior Tuihalamaka, another of the 42 athletes covered by the injunction, is on the roster and in the defensive line rotation. Former Utah and Broncos cornerback Blake Cotton, the third former pro LSU had been working on, was also left off the Friday roster, per On3. All three could still be added later in the season.
Elsewhere, the case is producing college players. ESPN’s breakdown of the Louisiana plaintiffs lists five who are on Power Four rosters for Week 1 without having signed NFL contracts: linebacker Trent Hendrick at UCLA, cornerback Ethan Johnson at South Carolina, safety DQ Smith at Virginia Tech, safety Brylan Green at Arkansas and kicker Luke Drzewiecki at Minnesota. The three who did sign NFL deals and were cut, TJ Harden, Anthony Hankerson and Blake Cotton, are still waiting to see whether any school will take the conference risk.
For the first time, active NFL players are returning to college football, or trying to. A Louisiana court’s Aug. 19 temporary restraining order allows 16 football plaintiffs, including Dae’Quan Wright, Jack Pyburn, Anthony Hankerson and Wydett Williams Jr., to enter the transfer portal and play in 2026, provided they leave the NFL, terminate their contracts and repay their professional earnings first.
Then the ground shifted: on Aug. 25, hours after Wright cleared NFL waivers with a reported LSU deal waiting, the Big Ten and SEC adopted rules banning NFL returnees outright, and the NFL followed with a memo barring clubs from signing anyone who goes back. The tracker below follows a three front fight: the players, the courts, and the conferences standing in between. Everything remains court driven and temporary, with each claim labeled by its actual status.
How to Read This Tracker
Treat the labels as load bearing. Confirmed means an official transaction or on record statement; Reported means credible outlets citing sources; Pending and Legally disputed mean exactly that. The NFL side is settled: Pyburn stayed, Hankerson is free, Williams held his spot. The state court side went to the players on Sept. 3, and LSU declined to act on it on Sept. 4. Opening night, Sept. 5, comes and goes without a former NFL player on a college field. The dates that matter now are the SEC’s appeal, any movement in the Alabama federal case, and whichever week LSU decides to use its two open roster spots. The rules behind all of it are in our NCAA eligibility explainer, and the hurdle by hurdle test case is whether Wright can actually play for LSU. For portal mechanics, see how the transfer portal works; for the standard rules these cases are bending, college football eligibility explained.
The Bans: The New Wall
The Aug. 25 conference rules changed this from a two party fight (players vs. NCAA) into a three party one. The Big Ten’s ban passed unanimously; the SEC’s covers football and basketball and hands Commissioner Sankey direct penalty authority. The SEC has not rescinded its ban; it told plaintiffs’ counsel it would comply with the court order, contested the case at the Sept. 3 hearing, lost, and took its case to federal court in Alabama the same day. The Big 12 and ACC followed with bans of their own. The details sit in what the Big Ten, SEC and ACC actually did, and the legal collision is mapped in our conference ban analysis.
What the SEC Put in the Filing
The amended complaint leans on Kiffin’s own words. It cites his halftime remark to an ABC sideline reporter during LSU’s 51-10 win over Clemson, that the score might have been even more lopsided had Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris been allowed to play. That comment, made while the two were practicing with the team but off the roster, is being used as evidence of intent.
It is also worth remembering what the conference already voted for before expulsion entered the conversation. The penalty package passed 15-0, with LSU abstaining, and includes a half season suspension for an offending head coach, a fine equal to 50 percent of the sport’s operating budget, and loss of SEC voting rights. Expulsion is the step beyond all of that, and the pressure for it has been building publicly. Georgia attorney general Chris Carr called on member schools to use every measure available, naming suspension and expulsion directly, if LSU ever put a former pro on the field.
It Is Not Only Football
The same fight is running through LSU basketball. Coach Will Wade has pursued RJ Luis Jr., the former Big East player of the year at St. John’s, who spent part of the 2025 NBA offseason and preseason with the Jazz and the Celtics but never appeared in a regular season game. Luis is suing the NCAA in the same Baton Rouge court, and on Aug. 24 a judge issued a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking the NCAA from punishing LSU if the Tigers play him. That would also violate the SEC rule at the center of the conference’s federal suit, which is one reason the league’s complaint reaches past the football roster to the school itself.
The Bottom Line
A Louisiana judge cleared Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris on Thursday, and LSU left both off its roster on Friday anyway, submitting 103 names with two spots open. Those two spots are now gone, filled by Aiden Anding and Gabriel Reliford, which closes the roster at 105 and ends the practical path for both players this season unless a court reopens it. The fight has already outgrown the roster: on Sept. 10 the SEC’s presidents and chancellors vote on whether to expel a founding member of the league, and Sankey has said in a sworn declaration that the meeting proceeds whether or not LSU renounces any plan to play former pros. Expulsion would take a two thirds majority and is not expected. Clemson had warned that playing them could breach the game contract, the SEC’s federal suit against Kiffin and LSU is pending in Alabama, and neither player was healthy enough to matter this week. So Saturday night in Baton Rouge kicks off with zero former NFL players on a college field, a preliminary injunction that protects schools that play the plaintiffs but does not force them to, an SEC appeal and a federal suit still pending, and a decision LSU can revisit any week it wants. The players’ own lawyer is asking for the temperature to come down; the roster math (103 of 105) says LSU has not closed the door. This tracker updates with every ruling, signing and transaction.