Miami fans have spent years wondering whether the Hurricanes would be better off outside the ACC, especially as the financial and television gaps between the power conferences have widened. The SEC and Big Ten have more money, more national attention and a deeper collection of football brands, which has made it an easy destination to romanticize whenever the ACC's future comes up.
But this week is a reminder that SEC membership does not make a program immune from dysfunction.
LSU's pursuit of players who spent the summer in the NFL has put the conference in a legal and political standoff just days before the season.
LSU is testing how much authority a conference actually has
In June, the NCAA adopted an age-based model that generally allows athletes to compete throughout a continuous five-year eligibility period. The rules did not retroactively give another season to athletes who had already exhausted their fourth season during the 2025-26 academic year. That left members of the 2022 high school recruiting class arguing they had landed in an unfair middle ground between COVID-era extensions that benefited older players and a new system that could benefit younger ones.
Lawsuits followed and temporary court orders opened the possibility that players who had already pursued professional careers could return to college.
The prospect of that alarmed the SEC enough to establish a rule barring players who had crossed certain professional thresholds from returning to conference rosters. Of course, it is still playing out in court, even with the new rule.
That leaves the SEC in a remarkable position. The situation has even raised questions about whether the conference would sue one of its own schools and how far conference bylaws allow presidents and the commissioner to go.
That is quite a way to begin a season and it's something the ACC doesn't have to deal with.
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