So remember the other day -- it was Wednesday, if memory serves -- when the Blob blobbed about a tight end named Dae'Quan Wright who decided to go back to college ball after the Cleveland Browns released him?
The SEC immediately pushed through rules that prohibited players who'd been in a pro camp from coming back to college, and threatened severe penalties for any member schools that tried to add them to their rosters. The Blob said this was all well and good, but as surely as night follows day, the suits soon would be hauling everyone into court forthwith.
Their argument, in the Blob's opinion, would be that because the college game is virtually indistinguishable from the pro game these days, a pro released by an NFL team should have every right to rejoin a pro SEC program if he still had eligibility.
Well, guess what, boys and girls?
Forthwith came a bit sooner than expected.
This from ESPN reporter Dan Murphy:
The SEC and commissioner Greg Sankey are not allowed, at least for now, to punish schools if they play a college football player who returns to campus after signing a contract with an NFL team this summer, according to an order signed Friday by a Louisiana state judge.
The temporary restraining order prohibits the SEC from enforcing a new rule adopted by the conference earlier this week that threatens stiff penalties for any team that uses a player previously who previously signed a contract to play in the NFL, NBA or WNBA. The league voted to enact the rule after tight end Dae'Quan Wright and defensive tackle Zxavian Harris announced plans to join their former coach, Lane Kiffin, at LSU after leaving NFL training camps ...
The judge also signed a show-cause order that requires the SEC and NCAA to explain during Thursday' hearing why the new penalties associated with their pro athlete rules, which plaintiffs' attorneys described as "draconian," do not put them in contempt of court and in violation of the judge's previous ruling in the case.
Well, well, well. Sometimes the Blob DOES get the prognostication thing right.
Or, you know, pretty close to right.
The argument being floated by Wright, Harris and others, it seems, is not the colleges-are-just-as-pro-as-the-pros tack the Blob predicted. Rather, they're arguing that the only reason they were in pro training camps to begin with is because they believed their eligibility was exhausted. But a court ruling in June (the "previous ruling" in question) granted a fifth year of eligibility for everyone, meaning Wright and Harris still had a year in the bank.
"(The NCAA) created this cluster, and now they've got to lay in that bed," said Tony Clayton, one of the attorneys representing Wright, Harris and 40 other athletes.
Hmmm. That sounds familiar ...
From the Blob, three days ago: My perhaps un-bold prediction is the judge won't buy those groceries for a second. He (or she) will say, essentially, "Boys, you made this bed. Now you gotta sleep in it."
I love it when a prediction comes THIS together. Don't you?
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