I’m going to start with something that might sound strange considering where I’m going with this.

Once you turn pro, I don’t believe you should be able to go back and play college football.

If you sign an NFL contract, report to an NFL training camp and enter professional football, that should be the line.

College football needs guardrails, and that’s one I have no problem with.

But you can’t keep changing the landscape of college football, create gray areas nobody completely understands, and then allow young players to make career-altering decisions before finally deciding where the line is.

That’s where I have a problem with what happened to Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris.

And Wright may have paid an enormous price for it.

From the NFL to LSU — And Then Nowhere

Wright spent the summer with the Cleveland Browns while Harris was with the New Orleans Saints.

Both former Ole Miss players then attempted something that once would have sounded impossible:

Return to college football and play for LSU.

A Louisiana judge granted a preliminary injunction that appeared to open that door.

LSU wanted them.

The players believed they could play.

Then the SEC drew its own line.

The conference opposed players returning to SEC competition after entering professional football, putting LSU in a position where pursuing Wright and Harris meant potentially taking on its own conference.

LSU eventually moved on.

For Harris, the situation remains complicated as he works his way back from injury.

For Wright, the consequences could be much greater.

Dae’Quan Wright Is Now in Football Purgatory

Wright’s agent Drew Rosenhaus appeared on The Pat McAfee Show Wednesday morning and described his client with one word:

Limbo.

According to Rosenhaus, Wright left Cleveland believing he would be able to play at LSU.

Wright never played for LSU. He never appeared on its roster. Rosenhaus said they intentionally avoided formally signing with LSU while the SEC dispute unfolded because they didn’t want to jeopardize his ability to return to the NFL.

Now they’re waiting to find out whether the NFL will allow him back.

Think about that.

Wright was an undrafted player trying to establish himself professionally. Rosenhaus believes he at least had an opportunity to remain with Cleveland on its practice squad.

Then another door opened.

Return to college.

Play at LSU.

Potentially make considerably more money.

Put another season of film together.

Improve your draft stock.

Then potentially get another opportunity at the NFL.

A court said he could do it.

His representation believed he could do it.

LSU wanted him.

If you’re a young football player, what decision do you make?

Wright chose LSU.

Then the door closed behind him.

I Still Think the SEC’s Basic Position Is Right

This is where two things can be true at the same time.

I don’t think Wright should have been allowed to return to college football.

Once you’re a professional football player, I believe your college playing career should be over.

Period.

I understand why the SEC wanted to prevent this from becoming the next frontier of roster building.

Imagine where this goes otherwise.

An NFL player doesn’t make the 53-man roster, so a college coach calls and offers him an NIL opportunity to come back for another season?

That’s not where I want college football going.

The NFL shouldn’t become another version of the transfer portal.

But if that’s going to be the rule, everybody needs to know the rule before somebody gives up an NFL opportunity because he’s been told he can return to college.

That’s the difference.

College Football Created the Gray Area

This didn’t happen in a vacuum.

Look at what we’ve done to college football.

NIL fundamentally changed player compensation.

The transfer portal transformed roster movement.

Eligibility rules continue changing.

Now we’re dealing with the five-year eligibility landscape.

Players can change schools. Players can make significant money. Rosters can be rebuilt almost overnight.

The old boundaries between amateur, college and professional football aren’t nearly as obvious as they once were.

None of that means NFL players should be allowed to return to college.

But when you combine all of it, you create an environment where somebody was eventually going to test where college football actually ends.

Wright and Harris found that line.

Unfortunately, they found it while standing on top of it.

They got caught in the crosshairs of a system that was changing faster than its rules could keep up.

This Is Bigger Than One LSU Roster Decision

That’s why I don’t look at this as simply an LSU story.

It’s a warning.

College football needs to decide what it is.

If signing an NFL contract permanently ends your college eligibility, put it in writing and make it unmistakable.

Every player should know.

Every parent should know.

Every agent should know.

Every coach should know.

Every conference should operate under the same understanding.

Because we’re talking about rules from the outside.

Dae’Quan Wright is talking about his life.

If Rosenhaus is right that Wright had an opportunity to continue pursuing the NFL through Cleveland’s practice squad, think about what he potentially gave up.

An entire NFL season.

Development.

Practice reps.

Relationships with coaches.

Film.

A chance to prove he belongs.

For an undrafted player trying to establish a professional career, those opportunities are everything.

Maybe the NFL lets him return and this becomes nothing more than a strange chapter in his career.

I hope that’s exactly what happens.

But what if it doesn’t?

A young man may have damaged his opportunity to have a career in football because he made a decision based on an opportunity that a court said was available, his representation believed was available and a major college football program wanted to give him.

Then the rules caught up.

Draw the Line Before Someone Crosses It

I don’t blame the SEC for wanting guardrails.

I want them too.

And my guardrail would be simple:

Once you turn pro, you’re done playing college football.

But rules have consequences.

If we’re going to ask 20-something-year-old players to make decisions that could affect the rest of their lives, the people running college football have a responsibility to make those rules clear before those decisions are made.

Not afterward.

Not after a lawsuit.

Not after an injunction.

Not after a conference threatens consequences.

And certainly not after a player walks away from an NFL opportunity.

Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris shouldn’t become the blueprint for NFL players returning to college football.

They should become the reason college football finally writes a blueprint so this doesn’t happen again.

Draw the line. Make it clear. And stop letting players discover where it is after they’ve already crossed it.