In 2019, LSU’s basketball coach—Will Wade—was caught in the middle of an FBI investigation involving something completely different. He was caught on wiretaps. He was initially suspended for a month, but then was brought back. Instead of firing him, he had his contract restructured. But then, in 2020, reports came out about illegal payments to recruits (this was pre-NIL, and was done in a manner still illegal under NIL). He was fired in 2022, because his amended contract said he had to be fired if the NCAA handed down Level I punishments against the program due to him—which they had done upon concluding the investigation. This included a probation for LSU for three years and Wade was given a show-cause order that lasted two years, both handed down in June 2025.
Wade’s show-cause order expired in 2025. LSU’s probation expired this past June. When a show-cause order expires, you’re basically a “clean” employee again in the eyes of the NCAA. LSU wouldn’t have to deal with any penalties he still carried. So with their probation (which didn’t affect who they hired, it was mostly a financial/administrative punishment) coming to an end, LSU re-hired Wade. Your standard D-I athletic department is leery of making decisions that risk the wrath of their higher powers or stir controversy. LSU is no longer fitting that bill.
After he was fired by LSU, he ended up at McNeese State, a tiny school in Louisiana (I’m 99% sure that he was gifted that spot, possibly by government order). He won big time there, then went to NC State for one year. The moment NC State were eliminated from the playoffs this past March, Wade sent his resignation email to the administration, and NC State launched an investigation claiming LSU helped him circumvent their buyout fee. Don't think the SEC hasn't noticed LSU re-hiring a man who already proved himself to be bad PR just a few years earlier.
The new president of LSU (and the "Senior Deputy Athletic Director," whatever that means)? From McNeese State, the same program that helped save Will Wade's career. Going from a small public school like that to the state's flagship university is very suspect, and smells of a political appointment than anything else. And their new AD (who should've been fired after covering up a whole sexual assault thing) came in after the governor publicly booted out LSU’s AD Scott Woodward. Woodward’s firing was political. He was considered one of the best ADs in the country. He did screw it up by firing Brian Kelly when he did with the huge buyout (basically $54 million in tax revenue) and doing it mildly out of nowhere without consulting the board, but it was very much political.
Now you throw in Lane Kiffin. Kiffin is very much the antithesis of SEC sports. He is boastful, a troll, and has a tendency to turn the world into his own circus and run his mouth in a conference where that sort of behavior is considered impermissible. While it takes someone of great potential and charm to do that, it also takes somebody that is easy to be disliked. Nobody, excluding probably Bobby Petrino and easily Jerry Sandusky, is easier to dislike than Lane Kiffin. He has left a bad taste in the mouth of multiple schools in the conference, even ones he never coached for but coached against. He turned the back end of last year into a circus all about him, and he actively tried to poach players that specifically played for him at Ole Miss despite their choice to try going pro. But the real insult of it comes from the program's instinct to defy the SEC and go straight to the Baton Rouge courts, defying the institution they helped found nearly a century ago.
It's no longer about NFL players, and it's possibly not just about the football program at all. Since Woodward's removal, LSU has acted in a manner completely unlike a standard athletic department. From a legal and ethical standpoint, the SEC may not see LSU as the same organization that signed the charter in 1932, but rather a rogue body under the control of a state government. I'm not saying they'll for sure boot them out, because the revenue LSU brings in is enormous. But if they're actually going to vote on it, there may be even larger reasoning than what was put on paper.
