BATON ROUGE — The SEC's decision to ban former professional athletes from returning to college athletics has sparked a legal debate that is now playing out in courts across the country.

Attorney David Fleshman, with the Breazeale Sachse Law Firm, said the situation comes down to a fundamental question about who gets to make the rules in college athletics.

"You're currently seeing a tug of war in college sports between the NCAA, between the conferences, between players and schools," Fleshman said. "It is happening in real time. It is happening very fast, and it's a moving target."

The SEC's policy came in response to a preliminary injunction granted in the case of RJ Luis, a basketball player at LSU. That court ruling barred the NCAA from declaring certain players ineligible.

Fleshman said the key legal question now is whether the existing injunction is broad enough to stop the SEC from enforcing its new policy. He said attorneys are likely looking at how to extend the injunction to cover the conference directly.

The SEC's policy covers three categories of players: those who declared for a draft and did not withdraw their name in time, those who signed a contract with a professional team, and those who were actually on a professional roster.

Fleshman said some players involved in a second lawsuit filed in East Baton Rouge may still be eligible even under the SEC's own policy, depending on their individual situations.

"Categorically, I think the SEC's policy is problematic and it potentially directly conflicts with the ruling of the court," Fleshman said.

He expects other conferences to follow the SEC's lead, with the Big Ten and ACC likely to announce similar policies. He also expects more legal challenges from players and said new defendants like the SEC could be added to existing lawsuits.

LSU students interviewed on campus had mixed but largely similar views on whether former professional athletes should be allowed to return to college sports.

Orlando Ross said he thought the ban sounded fair because professional athletes have already competed at the highest level. "You've done what you need to do. You shouldn't need to come back," Ross said.

Corey Scott, a junior at LSU, said the experience gap between professional and college athletes creates an uneven playing field. "With them having that level of experience and then coming back down to the amateur level, I think it'll create a unfair disadvantage," Scott said.

Juan Thomas, also a junior at LSU, said NIL has changed the dynamic. "We've seen a lot of professional athletes trying to come back into college who are not getting the opportunity they believe they should be getting in professional athletics," Thomas said. "They're using the opportunity to come back to college to make more money."

Thomas said he hopes the situation leads college athletics back to what it was. "I feel like it's taken a point to where it's becoming its own professional league in sorts," he said.

Justin Helms, who works for a student organization at LSU, said the bigger issue is a lack of clear rules from the top. "It can't be like a case by case basis of making an exception for some players and not for others," Helms said. "It's gotta be just cut and dry. Everybody's treated the same across the board."

Tyler Wilson, a junior at LSU, said the NCAA should have resolved the eligibility question for the class of 2022 when it first came up. "I hope that the NCAA can regain control," Wilson said. "The lawsuits need to stop, the injunctions need to stop."