Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin says brutally honest approach to NIL, transfer portal ‘appreciated’ by fans, recruits

Lane Kiffin hasn’t been shy sharing his thoughts on how NIL and the transfer portal have affected his job as Ole Miss’ head football coach. 

He’s been so blunt about it that an appearance on “Marty & McGee” on the SEC Network led the show hosts to question why he’s so frank about those two hot topics in college sports. 

“It’s not like I’m the president, giving the State of the Union,” Kiffin said. “President of NIL and portal problems, but I do that because you guys tell me afterward how appreciative you are.

“Or I see fans or players, parents or recruits, and they’re like, ‘Wow. Thank you. We didn’t really know that’s what’s really happening because no other coach talks like that.’”

Recruiting players to the Rebels isn’t about selling the facilities, team culture and winning expectations anymore. Name, image and likeness deals, which allow athletes to get paid, have taken over the recruiting process. 

And if a player feels he can find a better deal elsewhere after a year or two on one campus, the transfer portal allows him to somewhere else — “plug and play,” as Kiffin called it. 

It’s changed the way Kiffin has tried to create a culture in his locker room, but he knows it’s adapt or die in this business. 

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“Accepting that you’re going to not have phenomenal culture,” Kiffin explained. “It doesn’t mean I don’t work on it, but I think I have to realize, ‘Hey, it just is what it is.’ One, we don’t have many kids that are dying to be here. They didn’t grow up wanting to go to Ole Miss. 

“These transfer kids are going to a place that fits them best at that time. It’s not about the school. And they’re not on their third, fourth, fifth year with you, where, ‘Hey, they know how we do it. They know the expectations, the culture, the other players.'”

Kiffin, the Rebels’ head coach since 2020, returned from the NFL to college football because he loved it. 

But things have changed. 

“A lot of that locker room, that’s where they wanted to play when they grew up,” Kiffin said of athletes wanting to play for their favorite college teams. “In the NFL, it’s business. It just makes for a very different dynamic. We’re not moved toward that to where it is really business, and I would say the joy is not the same.”

While he has his qualms about the evolution of college football and college sports in general, Kiffin is focused on leading his Rebels to another bowl game this season, which would be his fourth in a row. However, he wants to win this time around after losing in the Sugar Bowl in 2021 and the Texas Bowl in 2022. 

Kiffin owns a 23-13 record with the Rebels since taking over the program.