BATON ROUGE, LA — The cease-and-desist letter that Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels sent to LSU this week began, as most things in college football do, with a jersey number. The school handed his old No. 5 to cornerback D.J. Pickett, and Daniels, the 2023 Heisman Trophy winner, made clear he did not appreciate the gesture. He also asked for something back: the copy of the Heisman Trophy sitting in the LSU trophy room.

What the public did not immediately understand — because the letter’s attachments ran to forty-seven pages — is that the jersey and the trophy were only the first two line items. The full inventory, obtained this week by reporters who had to rent a hand truck just to carry it out of the courthouse, is considerably longer.

"You don't get to keep the mouthguard. That mouthguard was there for everything."

“People think this is about a number,” said a member of Daniels’ legal team, who asked not to be named because he was mid-inventory. “It’s about principle. And the mouthguard.”

The mouthguard, according to the letter, is non-negotiable. Daniels’ camp describes it as “game-used, unwashed, and, per the equipment staff’s own testimony, deeply consequential to the 2023 season.” An LSU equipment manager, reached at the loading dock, said he had located the mouthguard in a biohazard bin labeled “DO NOT TOUCH” and was prepared to surrender it “the second someone hands me a pair of tongs.”

The list does not stop at sports equipment. Daniels is asking LSU to refund, with interest compounded daily, every Chipotle burrito the training table never reimbursed him for during the 2023 campaign — a figure a team nutritionist estimated “somewhere north of a food coma and south of a small kitchen renovation.”

Then there is the matter of the yardage. Daniels has formally requested that LSU vacate his rushing yards from the record books on the grounds that, as the letter puts it, “those yards are mine. I ran them.”

Jayden Daniels' Official Demands Inventory (Abridged)

- No. 5 jersey: Cease distribution to D.J. Pickett, effective immediately. - Heisman Trophy copy: Return to sender, original packaging preferred. - Mouthguard: Game-used, unwashed, "sentient." Non-negotiable. - Chipotle burritos: Reimbursement plus interest, compounded daily since January 2024. - Rushing yards: Vacate from record books. "Those yards are mine. I ran them." - Grass clippings: All turf from Tiger Stadium where his cleats have ever touched. - The concept of "five": No five-star recruits, no fifth string, no "5-yard penalty" (now a "4.97-yard penalty"). - Death Valley: Rename, on the grounds that his name has been shouted there, loudly, on multiple occasions.

University officials have so far complied with roughly none of the above, though a grounds crew member confirmed they were “watering the grass less, just in case.”

The letter closes, however, with the demand that has LSU’s general counsel reviewing the legal definition of the word “tuition.” Daniels has submitted a formal invoice for what his team calls “the education he provided” — an itemized bill covering every touchdown, every highlight-reel play, every recruit swayed, and every jersey sold between 2022 and 2023. The invoice, sources say, totals a sum that would comfortably fund a new practice facility, with enough left over for a very large order of burritos.

At press time, LSU’s compliance office had reportedly assigned three staffers to determine whether a concept — specifically, the number five — can be repossessed, and whether the Heisman Trophy counts as a “return” or an “exchange,” since nobody could remember whether the school had a receipt.