Can the other SEC members get over their Kiffin hatred and see why is bad?

I don’t see how some of the other members can’t get past their hatred for Kiffin long enough to see how dangerous this precedent could be.

Whether you like Kiffin or LSU really shouldn’t even be the point. The bigger issue is the SEC essentially saying, “We can create or reinterpret a rule on the fly, and then punish you retroactively for something you did before that rule or interpretation was clearly established.”

If the SEC believed what LSU was doing exposed a loophole that needed to be closed, fine—close it. Clarify the rule going forward and make sure everyone understands where the line is. But retroactively punishing someone for crossing a line that wasn’t clearly drawn at the time is a completely different issue.

We literally just watched a version of this play out with Alabama basketball and Charles Bediako. The NCAA ruled Bediako ineligible, Alabama went to court and got a temporary order allowing him to play anyway, and he appeared in five games before the court ultimately ruled against him. Once that protection disappeared and Bediako was no longer allowed to play, the SEC didn’t turn around and retroactively punish Alabama for the games he had already played. Those results still counted. The reasoning was pretty straightforward: Alabama acted under the rules and legal circumstances that existed at the time. You don’t get to change the circumstances afterward and then pretend the school should have known what the eventual outcome would be.

That same principle matters here. You can think LSU exploited a loophole. You can think Kiffin knew exactly what he was doing. You can even think the SEC absolutely needed to close that loophole. None of that requires believing the conference should be able to establish a new interpretation and then reach backward to punish conduct that occurred before that interpretation existed.

We’ve seen where handing a governing body that kind of discretion can lead. Early in Goodell’s tenure, plenty of NFL fans loved watching him “clean up the league” and rule with an iron fist—especially when the hammer was falling on somebody else’s team. Eventually, though, that helped create a commissioner with an enormous amount of discretionary power, and once you hand over that authority, it becomes incredibly difficult to rein it back in.

That’s why this shouldn’t really be about defending Kiffin. It’s about the precedent. It’s very easy to support broad, discretionary power when it’s being exercised against someone you dislike. The question is whether you’ll still think it’s a good idea when the SEC decides to reinterpret a rule tomorrow and apply that interpretation retroactively to your school.