The NFL Should Be a One-Way Door

Dae’Quan Wright went from an NFL roster back to college football. If that door can swing both ways, what exactly makes college football college football anymore?

There are plenty of changes in college football that I’ve learned to accept. The transfer portal? Fine. NIL? Long overdue, even if the implementation has been wildly messy. Conference realignment? I don’t particularly like it, but I’ve accepted that geography and storied rivalries apparently mean very little these days. But every once in a while, something happens that makes me wonder whether we’ve completely lost the plot.

NFL players returning to college football qualify as one of those moments.

Former Ole Miss tight end Dae’Quan Wright went undrafted in the 2026 NFL Draft, signed with the Philadelphia Eagles, was waived, and was subsequently claimed by the Cleveland Browns. Cleveland waived him in late August, and Wright cleared waivers. Then went back to college.

Wright has now joined LSU, where he is practicing under his former Ole Miss coach, Lane Kiffin. The move is tied up in an ongoing legal battle over NCAA eligibility rules, but the fact remains:

A player went from an NFL roster then returned to a college football roster.

Read that again.

NFL roster. Back to college.

No. Immediately no.

THE NFL SHOULD BE A ONE-WAY DOOR

I don’t actually blame Dae’Quan Wright for taking advantage of the opportunity. Let’s just address that immediately. If he can make more money in NIL than I genuinely understand why he’s doing this.

If someone tells a football player he can leave college, pursue the NFL, get released and then return to a major college football program for another season, why wouldn’t he consider it?

I also don’t particularly blame Lane Kiffin for recruiting him, even if I generally don’t like the man. He makes a valid point that if he doesn’t bring these players back then some other powerhouse will. Kiffin’s job is to win football games at LSU. If the rules—or, in this case, the courts—make talented players available, coaches are going to recruit them.

The root problem is that the opportunity exists at all.

There has to be a point at which a college athlete stops being a college athlete. Once you declare for the draft, sign with an NFL organization, participate in an NFL offseason and compete for a professional roster spot, you’ve made your choice. You went pro and that is okay.

But the NFL should be a one-way door.

THIS ISN’T THE TRANSFER PORTAL

I can already hear the argument: Why shouldn’t a young athlete be allowed another opportunity if he still has eligibility? Because this isn’t transferring from Ole Miss to LSU. This isn’t a player deciding his current school isn’t the right fit. This isn’t even a player sitting out a season and reconsidering his future. This is someone leaving the college system and entering the professional football system.

Those are supposed to be two different things. At least, I thought they were.

Wright didn’t simply prepare for the NFL. He signed professional contracts and spent time with two NFL organizations. Now that the professional opportunity didn’t work out as planned, college football becomes an available fallback. That’s where I draw the line.

College football should not be the return policy for an unsuccessful attempt at professional football. Especially if we are trying to maintain that colleges are academic institutions.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE ACTUAL COLLEGE ATHLETE?

This is the part that bothers me perhaps even more than the absurdity of the situation itself. Every roster spot has consequences. Somewhere there’s a high-school tight end hoping LSU will offer him a scholarship. There’s a freshman already on LSU’s roster trying to earn playing time. There’s a sophomore who has spent two years developing and waiting for his opportunity. There’s another college player who might have considered LSU through the transfer portal.

And now they’re potentially competing for opportunities with someone who has already left college football for the NFL. How exactly is that good for college athletics? We spend a tremendous amount of time talking about creating opportunities for college athletes. Maybe we should start asking whether endlessly extending opportunities for older, more experienced players eventually takes opportunities away from the athletes college sports was supposedly designed to serve.

And that’s not merely theoretical. The SEC itself has argued that allowing former professionals to return raises competitive-equity concerns and reduces opportunities for high-school and current college athletes.

AND APPARENTLY WE’RE NOT STOPPING AT ONE

Wright isn’t the only former professional player involved. Former Ole Miss defensive lineman Zxavian Harris signed with the New Orleans Saints after going undrafted, participated in the team’s offseason program, and was later waived. LSU has also pursued Harris as he seeks another season of college eligibility.

So much for an isolated loophole. Once coaches and players know the door is open, they’re going to walk through it. Of course they are. That’s generally what happens when someones holds the door for you.

Imagine you’re building a college roster and your choices include an 18-year-old freshman who needs development or a 22-year-old who has already experienced an NFL offseason.

Which player likely gives you the better chance to win right now? That’s exactly why there needs to be a rule preventing the choice from existing. Otherwise, we’ve simply created another talent pool for college coaches:

High-school recruits. Transfer-portal players. And guys who just got cut by NFL teams.

That’s ridiculous.

COLLEGE IS SUPPOSED TO MEAN SOMETHING

As a former teacher, this is the biggest issue for me.

College athletics has changed so dramatically that we’ve increasingly started treating college football as its own professional sports league. Players are compensated, coaches make millions, programs spend unfathomable amounts of money assembling rosters, TV networks influence schedules, and revenue drives all decision making.

I understand all of that. But somewhere underneath the billions of dollars and television contracts is still supposed to be a university.

An academic institution.

College football exists—or at least originally existed—because universities sponsor athletic programs for students attending those universities. That’s the distinction. Otherwise, what exactly makes this college football?

The uniforms? The fight songs? The fact that the stadium happens to sit on a campus?

If someone can leave school, enter the NFL, sign a professional contract, get waived and then return to college football because the professional opportunity didn’t work out, we’re getting dangerously close to admitting that college football is simply a developmental professional league with university logos.

And if that’s what we want it to be, then say it. But stop pretending otherwise.

FAILURE AT THE NEXT LEVEL SHOULDN’T RESET THE CLOCK

I believe in second chances. I also believe choices have consequences. Declaring for the NFL Draft is a choice and so is signing an NFL contract. Ultimately, leaving college athletics to pursue professional football is a choice. Sometimes that choice works beautifully. Sometimes a player gets drafted, makes a roster and builds an NFL career. Sometimes he doesn’t. That’s professional sports. Thousands of athletes discover every year that the next level is brutally difficult. Just ask Johnny Football. Or Vince Young. Or insert hundreds of other names.

Failure to make an NFL roster shouldn’t create a reset button that sends you back to college football. The answer isn’t to keep moving backward until something works.

Simply put: Your college sports eligibility should end when you choose to become a professional football player.

WHERE DOES THIS END?

This is always my question when we erase another boundary. If one NFL training camp is okay, what about two? What about a season on a practice squad? What if someone appears in a regular-season game? What if he’s released after two NFL seasons and still somehow has eligibility under whatever framework exists by then? At what point do we finally say:

You’re a professional football player.

There has to be an answer. And it shouldn’t require a complicated NCAA flowchart.

Once you sign with an NFL team, your college football eligibility should be over.

Make that the rule. Simple. It even allows an athlete to declare for the draft without consequence.

Interestingly, even the NFL has now had to address the reverse side of this mess: the league now says players who return to college won’t be eligible to play in the NFL during the 2026 season and would instead become free agents for 2027. I bet Roger Goodell didn’t anticipate needing to explicitly name that, but here we are.

SOME DOORS SHOULDN’T SWING BOTH WAYS

College football doesn’t need another loophole. It desperately needs boundaries. College football is becoming the gentle parenting of athletics and it needs refinement.

Players deserve compensation. They deserve mobility. They deserve reasonable eligibility rules. And they deserve far more power than they had under the old NCAA model. None of those truths require turning college football into a safety net for players who don’t make it in the NFL.

Dae’Quan Wright isn’t the problem. Zxavian Harris isn’t the problem. Not even Lane Kiffin is the problem in this case.

They’re responding rationally to a system that has created an irrational opportunity.

The system is the problem.

And apparently the SEC agrees that a line needs to exist. The conference adopted rules barring players who signed professional contracts from returning to SEC competition, and the dispute has now escalated into litigation between the conference and LSU.

Fix the eligibility rules. Settle the lawsuits. Give athletes clear expectations from the moment they enroll. And please preserve at least one obvious distinction between college football and professional football.

When you enter the NFL, you’re choosing to leave college football behind. And if the NFL doesn’t work out? I genuinely wish you success in whatever comes next.

But what comes next should most certainly not be another season of college football.