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A Baton Rouge judge granted a group of former collegiate athletes a preliminary injunction Thursday in the lawsuit they filed against the NCAA and the Southeastern Conference, clearing a major hurdle for LSU’s hopes of scooping up a pair of players who were recently cut from NFL rosters. The historic ruling, given by Judge William Jorden, applies only to athletes named in the suit. And it comes on a day in which the SEC filed a separate lawsuit in an Alabama federal court against LSU, athletic director Verge Ausberry and coach Lane Kiffin, accusing them of orchestrating the legal saga that produced the injunction on Thursday. Jorden said he will also enjoin LSU in his order, which prevents the university from taking any action against the plaintiffs in their pursuit of a fifth season of college sports. That was requested by one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Tony Clayton, to offer LSU protection because the school would be complying with the court’s order allowing athletes to play. The judge took issue with the SEC because, after he issued a temporary restraining order against the NCAA in mid-August, the conference adopted penalties against member institutions for adding athletes who were previously on pro teams, including a fine of 50% of a sport’s budget and a half-season suspension for a team’s coach. “I’m showing you I got a big gun,” Jorden said. “I still feel some type of way. I told you not to do something, and now this is the opportune time you decide (to institute penalties).” In Thursday’s hearing, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said the conference’s rule against former pros joining the conference existed prior to LSU’s aggressive push to add multiple fifth-year seniors. The rule, he said, was based on NCAA guidance, and the penalties instituted were approved by SEC members last week. The plaintiffs in the Louisiana case are all 2022 high school graduates who were not granted a fifth year when the NCAA changed its eligibility model in June to allow current athletes to play five seasons in five years. Jorden noted the NCAA’s rulebook did not explicitly state that the new “5 for 5” model didn’t apply to Class of 2022 high school grads. “The rule did not specify that these individuals are excluded,” Jordan said. “Write a damn double negative, I don’t care.” The attorney representing the SEC in court Thursday, Orleans Parish district attorney Jason Williams, said the conference plans to quickly appeal Jorden’s ruling. The Louisiana plaintiffs and their attorneys added the SEC and Sankey as defendants after the conference’s penalties were announced. Jorden accepted the amended complaint on Aug. 27, setting the stage for a landmark hearing in which he’d decide whether to award the plaintiffs longer-lasting injunctive relief. Sankey attended the hearing on Thursday and testified for over three hours. He later told reporters that he came to Baton Rouge to testify because “I think it’s important to stand up for principles.” “It’s important to be here,” Sankey added. “Plenty of disagreement on tough issues. I wanted to represent our universities and their expectations… Even if people disagree. We’ve not had people leaving NFL training camps and coming back to college.” The two Ole Miss starters-turned-LSU commits at the heart of the case — tight end Dae’Quan Wright and defensive tackle Zxavian Harris — joined Sankey in the courtroom, alongside a trio of heavyweight politicians. Harris and Wright also testified during Thursday’s hearing, downplaying how much they practiced with and were paid by their respective NFL franchises in the preseason. Wright said he earned $25,000 from the Eagles, who later waived him, and was not paid by the Browns despite suiting up for them in a preseason game. Harris said the only money he received from the Saints was a $190 reimbursement for gas, and the only thing he did with the organization was rehab his surgically repaired foot. Both players said they were injured during their senior seasons at Ole Miss. Wright testified that he tore his labrum early in the season but kept playing at the behest of Kiffin. Harris said he was unaware he had played the entire season with a broken foot until he went to the NFL combine, where he wasn’t able to work out. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill also appeared at the hearing after she filed an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs on Wednesday evening, putting herself at odds with her counterparts in Georgia, South Carolina and Mississippi. All three state attorneys general sided with the SEC in statements they released on Wednesday and Thursday. Georgia AG Chris Carr even encouraged Sankey to consider expelling LSU from the league — a drastic step that, according to Yahoo Sports, had begun to gain traction in recent weeks among prominent representatives of individual SEC schools. Gov. Jeff Landry took issue with those statements during the hearing on Thursday, when he posted on X that calling the athletes in question “NFL players” was “at best disingenuous and at worst intentionally deceptive.” “They are not professional football players circling back after years in the NFL,” Landry said. “They are college players who were told, by the NCAA, that they were done. So they took the only door that was open — only to watch the NCAA change the lock behind them.” Now, if the SEC enforces its rule barring professionals, it’d violate a Louisiana court order. That’s why it filed a federal suit against LSU on Thursday — to seek the legal cover it needs to impose penalties on any member program that violates its rules. When asked about the SEC’s federal lawsuit, Sankey said, “We’ll let that speak for itself.” Murrill, on the other hand, called the conference’s filing “garbage.”