LSU Cleared to Add Ex-NFL Players Wright, Harris to Roster After Judge Grants Injunction Against NCAA, SEC Before Clemson Opener

A Louisiana judge cleared the way Thursday night for LSU to add two former NFL players to its football roster just two days before the No. 11 Tigers host Clemson in a nationally televised season opener at Tiger Stadium. East Baton Rouge Parish Judge William Jorden granted a preliminary injunction against the NCAA and the Southeastern Conference, ruling that more than 40 athletes from the high school class of 2022 — including at least 19 football players — are entitled to a fifth season of college eligibility.

The ruling directly benefits LSU coach Lane Kiffin, who can now officially roster former Cleveland Browns tight end Dae’Quan Wright and former New Orleans Saints defensive lineman Zxavian Harris. Both players spent the 2025 season starting for Kiffin at Ole Miss before briefly signing NFL free agent deals over the summer, getting released, and pursuing a return to college football through the same legal fight now playing out in a Baton Rouge courtroom.

What the injunction actually changes

Jorden’s order blocks the NCAA from enforcing eligibility rules against the named plaintiffs and prevents the SEC from punishing any member school, coach or administrator for signing or playing one of the protected athletes. The judge limited the injunction to the 2026-27 academic year and declined to hold either the NCAA or SEC in contempt, finding neither organization had taken concrete action violating his earlier temporary restraining order. He also noted any appeal of his ruling would need to go to Louisiana’s First Circuit Court of Appeal or the state Supreme Court.

The timing could not be tighter. LSU faced a Friday deadline to submit its 105-man roster to the SEC ahead of Saturday night’s kickoff against Clemson, and the ruling landed the same day the SEC filed a separate federal lawsuit against LSU and Kiffin over the roster dispute. The conference has been unequivocal that it isn’t backing down. “The order entered against the SEC and Commissioner Sankey is a temporary restraining order, not a final ruling on the merits,” the SEC said in a statement, adding it plans to keep fighting to enforce its own ban on rostering former professional athletes even while complying with the injunction for now.

Harris, a 6-foot-8, 330-pound defensive tackle who started all 15 games for Ole Miss last season and racked up 58 tackles and three sacks, is viewed as an immediate contributor on a Kiffin defense that will need bodies up front against a physical Clemson offensive line. Wright, a 6-foot-4 pass-catching tight end who caught 39 passes for 635 yards and five touchdowns as a second-team All-SEC pick in 2025, gives LSU’s passing game another proven target — though he is not expected to play Saturday, since he still must satisfy NCAA practice acclimatization requirements before seeing the field. Both are among six former Ole Miss players who have followed Kiffin to Baton Rouge since he left Oxford for LSU.

How the betting market is reading the roster chaos

Despite the legal drama, the market hasn’t blinked much on the game line itself — which tells its own story about how oddsmakers view the situation. LSU opened as roughly a 9.5-to-11.5-point favorite over Clemson depending on the book, and as of Thursday the Tigers were sitting around -10.5 with Clemson’s moneyline hovering near +295 to +325, an implied win probability north of 80% for the home team. The total has held in the 50.5-to-51.5-point range for weeks. In other words, the addition of Wright and Harris hasn’t meaningfully moved the number against Clemson — largely because Wright won’t play Saturday and Harris’ impact, while real, was already being priced in as a probable outcome given how far the legal fight had progressed before Thursday’s ruling.

Where this news carries more weight is in LSU’s season-long futures market. The Tigers entered the year with some of the more bullish futures odds outside the traditional playoff favorites — regular-season win totals set around 8.5 to 9.5 wins, College Football Playoff odds priced near +160, and national championship odds in the +1700 to +1800 range on major sportsbooks. Adding proven SEC-tested talent like Harris at a position of need, with Wright potentially available for the stretch run once he clears acclimatization, reinforces the case for backing the over on LSU’s win total and keeps the Tigers squarely in the playoff conversation. A neutral or unmoved point spread against Clemson combined with an improved depth chart is typically viewed as market inefficiency in a team’s favor for futures bettors, since the game-level number hasn’t fully caught up to the roster-level upgrade.

The legal fight is far from resolved — the SEC has signaled it intends to appeal, and Thursday’s ruling was explicitly limited to this academic year rather than settling the underlying eligibility question. But for at least the next several months, LSU gets to play with a deeper roster than it had a week ago, and the futures market appears to be taking notice even if the Clemson line hasn’t.