Few fights between pro and college football this year have gotten as tangled as the one involving two former Ole Miss players who tried to follow their coach Lane Kiffin to LSU after NFL teams let them go. In a memo sent to all 32 teams, the NFL changed its answer on one of them.
Watch What’s Trending Now!
“The NFL is changing course and will now allow teams to sign Zxavian Harris, who attempted to play for LSU this season after being waived by an NFL franchise,” Front Office Sports posted on X. “The league concluded that Harris did not participate in any LSU practices, according to a memo to teams obtained by FOS.”
Harris, a former Ole Miss defensive tackle, can now visit clubs and sign either a standard NFL contract or a practice squad deal. The reversal came after the NFL interviewed him and independently checked his activities after training camps opened.
“Mr. Harris has disputed the report that he played college football after the opening of NFL training camps,” the memo read.
The league’s Management Council then confirmed he “did not participate in an organized practice with a college football team,” which makes him a free agent. The NFL also sided with the NFL Players Association’s reading that playing college football takes, at a minimum, a practice or a game.
That is a turn from September, when the league told teams that both Harris and Dae’Quan Wright were ineligible for the rest of 2026. That memo said both had returned to college and taken part with their college team after camps opened.
It also warned that signing or playing an ineligible player could bring fines, suspensions, or lost draft picks. The NFLPA said at the time that it was working with the players’ representatives to protect their rights under the collective bargaining agreement.
The new ruling rests on Harris’ lack of participation in organized college practices or games, not on any change to the NFL’s overall policy. Harris went undrafted in the 2026 NFL Draft and signed with the New Orleans Saints as a rookie free agent, but the Saints waived him in August, and he never made a final 53-man roster.
In his last season at Ole Miss, he had 58 tackles, nine tackles for loss, three sacks, three passes defended, and an interception, and he helped the Rebels reach the College Football Playoff the year before. No team has been reported to have signed him yet, so his next step is uncertain, with a practice squad spot as one possibility.
Lane Kiffin defended LSU’s decision to recruit players given an extra year of college eligibility, saying the Tigers were simply responding to a ruling that could benefit programs across the country by getting experienced players.
“They’re either gonna play for you or they’re gonna play somewhere else around the country. So, we’ve made the decision to recruit them, like probably most people are,” Kiffin said during a fall camp press conference in August 2026. “This is just a really unique circumstance that isn’t a traditional pro going back to college just because they win a case.”
Wright’s case is different, and the two should not be mixed up. The tight end also went undrafted in 2026, signed with the Philadelphia Eagles, and was waived. The Cleveland Browns claimed him and then waived him in August.
The latest memo did not mention him, and he remains ineligible to sign with an NFL team this season. His agent, Drew Rosenhaus, earlier told Front Office Sports that Wright had not signed an agreement with LSU. He can play with the UFL or in the CFL next year as their seasons are going on and is expected to be eligible to return to the NFL as a free agent next season.
The former Ole Miss defensive tackle still has to show a team he can play at the pro level. But the NFL’s new ruling gives him a chance to do that this season, after weeks of not knowing where he stood.
The Bigger Fight Over Eligibility
Harris and Wright tried to get back into college football after their NFL teams cut them. They said they should get a fifth year of college eligibility, so they joined a Louisiana lawsuit against the NCAA’s enrollment rule. A Baton Rouge court gave them an injunction that let them play. But LSU still left both of them off the roster when the 2026 season started.
The NFL had already taken a position, and at a special league meeting in August, it told teams that players released by NFL clubs who returned to college football would be ineligible for the current NFL season. Those players would become free agents the following season without re-entering the draft. That is the rule Wright is now living under.
Meanwhile, the bigger argument over former pros going back to college is far from settled. The SEC passed a rule banning them from returning, then sued LSU over the attempts to sign these two players. That lawsuit is still going, and what happened to Harris and Wright doesn’t settle the bigger question.
So the pieces are all in play at once: a state lawsuit aimed at the NCAA’s policy, an injunction from a Louisiana court, an SEC rule and lawsuit pointing the other way, and an NFL policy that treats a return to college as a reason to sit out a season.