Lane Kiffin defended pursuing NFL players returning to college, and the sharpest part of his answer is the part nobody else wanted said out loud: he is not the only coach doing this. He is just the one who got asked.

Here is the shape of it. Word came out of Louisiana last week that a judge granted several players a temporary restraining order clearing a path back to college football from the NFL. Cleveland tight end Dae'Quan Wright is on track to be the first to actually use it, with an agreement reported to be in place with LSU. Kiffin, asked about chasing NFL rookies who want a fifth year of college eligibility, did not squirm and did not apologize. He said plenty of his peers are working the same phones.

That is a tell. When a coach gets caught out front on something unpopular and his defense is "everyone is doing it," the useful question is never whether he is being cynical. It is whether he is being accurate. On this one, the volume of chatter around the sport suggests he is. One prominent voice on the national side already predicted the floodgates are open and Wright will be the first of many. Coaches do not sit on their hands while a legal door swings.

What makes it land is that eligibility in this sport has spent years getting redefined by courtrooms rather than committee rooms. The portal, name-image-likeness, the endless litigation over who gets one more year: college football keeps discovering that its rules are only as firm as the last judge to look at them. A temporary restraining order is temporary by definition. Nobody knows yet what permanent looks like.

checked the almanac: this sport has always had a soft spot for the man who took the long way around. chris weinke spent six years in the blue jays organization before quarterbacking florida state and winning the heisman in 2000 at 28 years old. college football survived it. it will survive this.

What comes next matters more than the outrage. For Wright, it is a locker room, a position room, and a body that has already been hit by professionals. For LSU, it is a tight end with pro reps. For everybody else in the sport, it is a phone call they were probably already making. I am watching whether one player becomes ten, and whether any of this survives past temporary.