A little advice to Louisiana’s loud-mouthed politicians and the SEC’s power-tripping chancellors and presidents: Don’t swallow the grenade pins.
Because, when you play a game of “Chicken” and start with both sides swallowing the safety pins, it doesn’t end well — for anybody.
Nobody involved in this LSU-SEC standoff wanted to come off looking weak or be the one to cry “Uncle.” Louisiana’s politicians and the SEC’s presidents and chancellors waded waist deep into this bog, and now they must be asking themselves how they can emerge from the swamp looking like the winner.
If they let this grenade go off, though, they’ll ensure nobody wins and everybody loses.
The SEC’s presidents and chancellors
scheduled a meeting for Sept. 10 to consider whether to expel LSU from the SEC.
Never mind grenades, expulsion would be what you call a nuclear option.
To go through with expulsion would be like dropping a bomb on your neighbor’s house because he flouts homeowners’ association rules and parks his boat on the front lawn. Yes, your neighbor should stop being a twerp and respect the rules of a community he agreed to live in, but how about a little conflict resolution that doesn’t result in mushroom cloud?
SEC kicking out LSU would be lousy ending for all parties
LSU fans, don’t kid yourselves, you want to be in the SEC. You want to play Alabama and Auburn and Texas A&M and Florida and all those other rivals you love to hate.
Peek at Texas Tech’s schedule. Is that really want you’d want in exchange for your season-ticket purchase? Please. If LSU wanted to play in the Big 12 or go at it alone as an independent, it would’ve done so by now.
As for the SEC, sure, it would have no trouble replacing LSU. Commissioner Greg Sankey’s desk would need to be reinforced by steel beams so it didn’t collapse from the weight of the resumes of perspective members, but if you think Virginia or North Carolina or Miami would offset the loss of LSU, you must not have seen the environment in Death Valley for Lane Kiffin’s debut. That’s SEC football.
Chasing NFL castoffs in pursuit of a competitive advantage, as Kiffin did, is SEC football, too.
Finding angles to bend the rules (or flat-out cheat) is embedded into the SEC’s fabric.
Or, have the SEC’s morality police forgotten Charley Pell’s no-show jobs for Florida players, Mississippi’s boosters and bag men that made Hugh Freeze briefly seem like a savant, Jeremy Pruitt’s Chick-fil-A bags filled with cash at Tennessee, and Alabama basketball coach Nate Oats playing an NBA G League dropout?
Kiffin and LSU overplayed their hand. But, if the SEC starts down a road of trading LSU for North Carolina, I hate to be the one to inform the SEC that the conference’s national title drought won’t be ending anytime soon.
If the antics of Kiffin and a cartoonish governor goad the SEC into kicking LSU out of the conference, who's the fool, really? Asking for the SEC's presidents and chancellors.
Any adults in room? Lane Kiffin's pursuit of NFL players needs an offramp
This situation calls for an offramp that ends somewhere short of the SEC expelling a charter member. LSU and the SEC office took initial steps toward de-escalation this week.
LSU started the stepdown when it added a couple of players who aren’t NFL castoffs to its roster, taking its squad to max capacity. In other words, there’s no room in the inn for LSU to add any NFL rejects, as Kiffin initially wanted to do.
“The roster is now locked for the season,” LSU president Wade Rousse wrote to Sankey in a letter obtained by USA TODAY Sports. “LSU complied with SEC rules. The issue is moot.”
After LSU’s roster moves, a federal court hit pause on the SEC’s lawsuit against Kiffin and LSU.
Consider that another step away from the nuclear solution.
Even so, this situation has ballooned beyond Kiffin, LSU and Sankey. I suspect Sankey and LSU would like to end this somewhere short of expulsion, but they’re not the only parties inside the boxing ring.
In one corner, you have Louisiana’s headline-hungry politicians. This saga became catnip that Louisiana’s clout-chasing Gov. Jeff Landry and ambitious attorney general Liz Murrill, who’s looking to make a name for herself, couldn’t resist.
In the other corner are the SEC’s chancellors and presidents. They have a bee in their bonnet over conference peer LSU going rogue and decided to flex some muscle.
The chancellors and presidents took the self-governance model out for a test drive, but instead of going for a little cruise, they put the pedal to the metal and considered running over LSU. Getting behind the wheel of a hot rod of power can be intoxicating, but better to get the muscle car back into the garage without anyone getting smashed.
Nobody wants to come out of a game of “Chicken” looking weak, but what’s worse than that? Turning a standoff into a blowup that harms everyone.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's senior national college football columnist. Listen to his podcast, "College Football Unfiltered." Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: If SEC kicks out LSU over Lane Kiffin, nobody wins | Opinion
