BIRMINGHAM — The hearing that was supposed to take up whether Louisiana's attorney general could be blocked from interfering with Thursday's SEC membership vote didn't happen. U.S. District Judge Annemarie Carney Axon continued it Wednesday with no new date set, according to TigerRag, which reported the court's order in full: "The hearing in this matter is continued. The court will reset the hearing by separate order." No reason was given in the order itself.
What arrived instead, the night before, was LSU's locked 105-man roster and a letter from President Wade Rousse calling the emergency moot. That is the public sequence. It is not the court's explanation.
LSU says the roster made the hearing moot. The judge didn't say that.
LSU locked its 105-man roster Tuesday night by filling its last two spots with cornerback Aidan Anding and defensive end Gabriel Reliford. In a letter to Commissioner Greg Sankey dated September 9, President Wade Rousse wrote that he called Sankey on the afternoon of September 4 and gave "advance notice that LSU would not place Dae'Quan Wright or Zxavian Harris on the football roster," that LSU then submitted its roster that evening, and that the final two spots were filled September 8. "The roster is now locked for the season," he wrote. "LSU complied with SEC rules. This issue is moot."
The letter treats September 4 as the close. The public roster does not. Rousse's account and the public roster are not the same timeline. LSU still entered the Clemson game with two spots open and only locked the cap Tuesday night.
LSU president Wade Rousse sent a letter today to SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, obtained by ESPN by FOIA. He says the issue of adding NFL players is “moot.” LSU will also “not challenge, disrupt or seek to cancel or postpone” the special SEC Presidents/Chancellors call tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/Xrr1X6Wpi4
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) September 9, 2026
Rousse used the same word, moot, for the second live issue in the case: whether LSU intended to disrupt Thursday's special Presidents' and Chancellors' meeting. "At no point has LSU ever threatened to upset the meeting," he wrote. "LSU will not challenge, disrupt or seek to cancel or postpone this meeting."
That letter is not a court filing. It is LSU's president telling the commissioner that both things the SEC went to federal court to stop are things LSU says it was never going to do. "Moot" is Rousse's word, not Judge Axon's. Her order gave no reasoning at all, and the SEC has not withdrawn its request for a restraining order.
The SEC's own amended complaint argues the roster was never the whole case. The conference wrote that LSU's continued membership is inconsistent with its principles "whether or not LSU ever includes Harris, Wright, or other football players who are ineligible under the Professionalism Rules." That sentence was in the filing before LSU filled its last two spots this week. Nothing that happened Tuesday or Wednesday required the SEC to walk it back. The legal theory, that a state-court order and the officials backing it boxed a private conference into keeping a member it wants gone, does not need Wright or Harris on the field to survive.
Murrill's response: there was nothing to block
Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill, added as a defendant in the SEC's amended complaint, used Wednesday's postponement to make the same argument she has been making since she was named. According to WAFB, she told reporters, "No one has attempted to block that meeting on Thursday. So the whole lawsuit is just a made-up thing." WAFB reported that attorneys on both sides met in chambers shortly before the 1 p.m. hearing time and agreed to continue it, with no new date announced.
On3 reported that Rousse and Sankey have had what sources described as "positive calls" while working to de-escalate the situation, which lines up with a president writing a conciliatory letter to a commissioner the day before the conference presidents meet.