No. 11 LSU enters game week vs. Clemson with an ex-NFL player practicing and maybe more to come

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Former Cleveland Browns tight end Dae'Quan Wright participated in a walk-through practice conducted by first-year LSU coach Lane Kiffin on Monday as the 11th-ranked Tigers prepared for Saturday night's season opener against Clemson.

Whether Wright or a couple other players who spent part of this offseason with NFL clubs — defensive lineman Zxavian Harris and defensive back Blake Cotton —- ever suit up for LSU remains in doubt because of litigation. Like other power leagues, the Southeastern Conference last week passed a rule barring pro players from returning to the league and it was promptly put on hold by a Texas judge.

Kiffin wasn't about to allow any kind of criticism stop him from embracing the opportunity to bring in players like Wright, who played for him at Mississippi last season.

“I feel like my decisions should always be made in the best interest of the players that sit in this team room and not for my reputation, and how my decisions play in national media and other fan bases. I've never been that way and that could be wrong,” he said.

Kiffin said that if college players are being paid like professionals, he is willing to make the case that college teams should not hesitate to sieze opportunities to make late roster additions in much the same way NFL teams do. He also said he met with LSU team leaders about whether to welcome recent pros back to college just days before a season-opener.

“Every one of them was emphatic about, ‘If they can help us win, bring ’em,’” Kiffin said. “That made me feel a little better."

“This is how it works at the next level,” Kiffin added. “This is how the real world works.”

Kiffin said the SEC knows that Wright — as star tight end for Kiffin at Ole Miss last season — had joined LSU at least for practice. His first day on the field was Monday, meaning he would not be permitted to play against Clemson under the NCAA's mandated seven-day “aclimitization protocol.”

However, former Notre Dame defensive lineman Junior Tuihalamaka, who did not sign with an NFL team but is nonetheless suing for a fifth year of NCAA eligibility, started practicing earlier.

Defensive end Jack Pyburn, who spent training camp with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after playing for LSU last season, was among the players suing the NCAA and was expected to come back to the Tigers after he was cut. Instead, he was claimed off of waivers on Monday by the Kansas City Chiefs.

Nearly 400 athletes have sued the NCAA and other defendants, seeking additional eligibility and claiming the organization’s 5-in-5 rule approved in June is unfair because it excludes members of the high school Class of 2022. More than 30 lawsuits, several of them in federal court, are in different stages of litigation. Some include a handful athletes who signed professional contracts, which prompted every Power Four conference to ban pros from returning to college – leading to even more court filings.

University presidents around the conference have expressed “a high level of frustration” with LSU since Friday, when a Louisiana judge included the SEC in his temporary restraining order against the NCAA, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity because those discussions were not public. A hearing is scheduled for Thursday in Baton Rouge.

Texas coach Steve Sarkisian, who previously worked on the same staff with Kiffin at Southern California, echoed those sentiments.

“Our presidents got this right in the Southeastern Conference,” Sarkisian said. "The fact that somebody out there is going to take a player off an NFL roster and tell somebody who’s been (on their college team) for nine months go kick rocks? That doesn’t sit well with me. I think that is wrong; that is morally wrong.”

Kiffin noted that LSU hasn't broken any conference rules - yet. Conference teams have to submit their final 2026 rosters the day before their season openers, which for most SEC teams is Friday.

“We’ll wait until this week to see if there’s any more guidance” from the courts, Kiffin said, discounting whether the “chaos” surrounding LSU at the moment might servse as a distraction to him or his team.

“I’ve lived with chaos for a long time," Kiffin said, noting that Ole Miss won the last five games he coached there while speculation swirled around whether and when he might leave to coach elsewhere.

“We’re going to have chaos, but we’re going to have controlled chaos and our team is going to understand why we do what we do," Kiffin added. "It doesn’t matter if national media doesn’t understand, or other fan bases.”

New artwork has gone up in the lobby of LSU's Football Operations Center. It shows the back of an LSU football player standing in the shadows of a tunnel entering a stadium. It states: “If you want to win at the highest level, you have to become a villain in someone else's story.”

AP Sports Writer Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, contributed.

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Cleveland Browns tight end Dae'Quan Wright warms up before a preseason NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills, Saturday, Aug. 22, 2026, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Singer D4vd lost his high-profile private lawyers Monday at a hearing where he entered a new not guilty plea to charges that he killed, sexually abused and dismembered 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez.

It's not clear why Blair Berk and her colleagues Marilyn Bednarski and Regina Peter parted ways with the indie-pop singer whose legal name is David Anthony Burke. They were replaced by a lawyer from the Los Angeles County Public Defender's Office.

The defense attorneys said in a statement only that the judge granted their request to withdraw after finding that Burke qualified for a court-appointed lawyer.

“We continue to support David and his defense against these serious charges,” the statement said. The lawyers would not answer specific questions about their departure outside the courtroom.

Burke earned at least $10 million through his music from 2023 through 2025, according to testimony from his money handlers at a previous hearing. It’s not clear how he financially qualifies for a public defender whose job is to defend clients who lack the money for a lawyer.

Without providing details, the Public Defender's Office said in an email that it had completed a thorough financial evaluation and found he was eligible.

Deputy Public Defender Walid Kandeel took over the defense. Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo denied his first request as the singer's lawyer to delay the arraignment. Olmedo demanded a plea Monday instead, and scheduled a status conference for October. No trial date has been set.

Olmedo ruled after a five-day evidentiary hearing in July that there was enough evidence for Burke to stand trial on charges of murder, continuous lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 and unlawful mutilation of human remains.

A second arraignment and plea, like Burke gave Monday, is standard practice after such a hearing and finding. He is eligible for the death penalty, but District Attorney Nathan Hochman said after Monday's hearing that his office is still deciding whether to pursue it.

Hochman said the new lawyers will make no difference in how his office pursues the case, though the switch may delay the process. He said regardless of the timing, his office is “ready to prove all three charges beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Outgoing attorney Berk has for years been among the go-to lawyers for A-list clients. They’ve included Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Harvey Weinstein and the late Ozzy Osbourne.

New attorney Kandeel said in a statement that “We recognize the loss of life underlying the allegations and extend our sympathies to those who are grieving. At the same time, David Burke is entitled to a defense that takes his circumstances seriously and carefully examines the evidence.”

Nick Reiner, charged with killing his parents, the director Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner, recently lost a similarly prominent private lawyer in favor of a public defender because his source of money was cut off. He’s now seeking access to a trust so he can rehire the attorney, Alan Jackson.

Authorities allege Burke stabbed Rivas Hernandez to death in April of last year after she threatened to expose sexual abuse that began when she was 13 and crater his rising career just days before his debut album dropped.

“i will end ur career and ur life,” she told him in a text message sent the night before her death.

Prosecutors said the following night Burke sent an Uber for her and stabbed her when she entered his house. They presented evidence that her phone went permanently silent at that moment.

Rivas Hernandez’s dismembered and decomposing body was found in the trunk of Burke’s Tesla in the Hollywood Hills in September while he was on tour.

Prosecutors argued at the July hearing that the “mountains of evidence” they presented were overwhelming. Burke’s lawyers argued that the evidence of murder was insufficient.

D4vd (pronounced “David”) became an online musical phenomenon as a teen with a blend of indie rock, R&B and lo-fi pop. He had huge followings on TikTok, SoundCloud and Spotify, where his top songs, including his 2022 breakthrough “Romantic Homicide,” have more than a billion plays.

In 2024, he played the Coachella music festival and released his first full-length album, “Withered,” two days after authorities say Rivas Hernandez was killed.

FILE - D4vd appears at Variety's Power of Young Hollywood in Los Angeles on Aug. 8, 2024. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - David Anthony Burke, whose stage name is D4vd, is arraigned in Los Angeles, April 20, 2026, on charges of killing a 14-year-old girl whose dismembered body was found in his car. (Ted Soqui/Pool Photo via AP, File)