Greg Sankey and the SEC are making it pretty clear that they are not done with LSU. Kiffin and other Bengal Tigers decision-makers blinked on adding professional players, but an SEC meeting on Thursday could still punish Kiffin or LSU.
Lane Kiffin must have thought his decision not to roster professional players was only a temporary setback. He certainly expressed no contrition for alarming the rest of the SEC that strong consideration had already been given to expelling LSU from the conference.
We now know the SEC was not 'woofing' in an attempt to scare LSU's decision-makers. The SEC has amended its federal court lawsuit against LSU and will meet again on Thursday to discuss punishment for LSU.
In the TRO request for the lawsuit, the SEC stated that Lane Kiffin was coordinating with Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill and Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry. More damaging to LSU was the SEC's statement that LSU's "executive officers" have "no meaningful control over Coach Kiffin or the football program at LSU."
Sankey and SEC leaders appear to agree that such a lack of institutional control is a bigger problem than trying to roster professional players. As reported by Justin Williams, Thursday's SEC meeting will consider "whether to terminate LSU as an SEC member institution."
Will the SEC expel LSU?
A quick guess is no. A follow-up answer is that the SEC seems determined to punish LSU in some significant manner. Only a two-thirds vote of the SEC's presidents and chancellors could expel LSU. The TRO request included the SEC statement: "Today's filing is necessary to defend that right and preserve the Conference's ability to govern competition among its members."
We can speculate that the SEC's mood is more than disgust with LSU. Over several months, the SEC has seriously discussed a self-governance structure. What LSU has done might quickly become the tipping point for self-governance action.
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