It’s that time of year again. We’re nearing the start of the football season, which means it’s time for conference media days. This week we finally got the SEC edition, taking place this year in Nashville, TN. We have already covered several newsworthy headlines surrounding other schools in the conference. It’s now time to address what Lane Kiffin said at SEC Media Days about the Ole Miss program and the state of college football as a whole.
He’s certainly optimistic about the direction his Ole Miss program is headed. He’s less so about the direction the sport of college football is going, and the state of NIL within college sports as a whole.
In fact, that was the unofficial theme of his comments on Thursday morning.
SEC Media Days: Kiffin Comments on NIL “Disaster”, Free Agency
His biggest complaint is NIL, and the fact that it’s not being used how it was originally designed. The entire basis of the NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) craze that broke throughout college athletics a few years ago was that it was a way for athletes to market themselves and to get paid off of that marketability. This was previously something forbidden by the NCAA.
The idea of player’s marketing themselves has now become more of a situation where schools and boosters bolster up hundreds of thousands, even millions, of dollars, just to get an athlete to commit. Kiffin even went as far as to compare it to free agency. Albeit, a free agency system that allows multiple signings annually, instead of long term deals.
“What if you had that in other sports? Tom Brady, A’Jai Wilson, Lionel Messi, LeBron James, what if every year those guys can opt to free agency, twice a year, really and they have no long-term contracts? Basically everybody is not even on a one-month contract because they can leave in two windows,” Kiffin asked.
He then continued, “Whatever programs have the most aggressive boosters with the most are going to get the players. And now we are adding some states that you don’t have to follow the NCAA, and now the university can take their money and give it to the collective to give it to the players.”
This was something that was common knowledge to many who pay attention to college athletics. The problem is that too many wanted to blindly believe the new system wouldn’t be corrupted.
But those comments lead us to his take on the newfound collectives that multiple universities (including Ole Miss) have created.
Kiffin Not a Fan of “Collectives”, Either
Many universities, seeing where the NIL madness was headed, decided to create collectives. They did this as a way to raise money for athletes, essentially skirting by the notion of NIL and players having to market themselves to make money. In essence, the more money raised by the collective, the more money they could give to players, leading to a likelihood of better recruits.
That all goes back to the pay-for-play world that we are now heading toward in regards to college sports.
Taking it a step further, seven of these collectives have recently formed an association with the goal of introducing a revenue-sharing model in the near future. In fact, Ole Miss’ “The Grove Collective” is one of the seven collectives in the association.
Despite being the head coach at Ole Miss, Kiffin still isn’t a fan of collectives.
“So they say revenue sharing would make it an equal playing field, which is what the NCAA always wants to do, make things an equal playing field. Well, obviously what we described with no salary cap and everybody operating off different budgets, that’s not anywhere close,” Kiffin started.
He then pushed further by pointing out that that doesn’t necessarily fix things. “I don’t know that that fixes it. Sounds good but then you are still going to have: Here is your revenue-sharing pot that everybody is the same, but then here you’re still going to have all this other money that donors can go give players. Or the way it is now, in some states, the school just funnels the money to the players.”
Now as he’s repeatedly stated, both in the past and in his comments Thursday, he’s a fan of players getting paid. But he’s also 100% correct that more discussion is needed.
NIL Leading to Locker Room Tension?
This was another topic that we should have all seen coming. In the past, players (legally) weren’t getting paid. So there was never a true worry about locker room tension surrounding what players made.
Today’s college athletic landscape is completely different. This is why Kiffin was asked about how difficult navigating the locker room discussions can be. Especially surrounding the notion that players now have a general idea of what others are making.
“I get it, because they come in complaining. You know, I’ve been here, or I transferred here and this guy is going to make more money than me. You know what, I’m not saying it’s fair, but get ready. That’s life. That’s going to happen,” Kiffin pointed out.
He then compared college locker rooms to NFL locker rooms. ” You’re going to be in an NFL locker room and you sign a contract, and this new guy – or you got drafted in the fourth round and this new guy coming in, you’re playing ahead of him, and he makes more money than you.”
This seems like a rational way to look and address this. At this point, there’s not all that many differences between the two locker rooms. Kiffin is trying to prepare his players for life outside of college athletics, where these worries are already coming to light.
But have no fear, he did also address the roster and the team itself.
Last Year’s Failures Leading to This Year’s Success?
Last year, following a great start, the team crashed and burned down the stretch.
An 8-1 start led to a match-up with 7-2 Alabama on a cold, rainy November afternoon in Oxford. With a chance to pull off the upset, the Rebels had a first and 10 at the Alabama 14-yard line. Needless to say, they were unable to score, and squandered the opportunity for the victory.
That would virtually be the beginning of the end for last year’s Rebels. Losing their last four, including the Alabama game, they finished the year at 8-5. That’s something that Kiffin still looks back on and takes responsibility for.
“I didn’t do a very good job over the year of keeping our team together, not as an excuse, but I said it up here a year ago, you know, the challenges when you have such a roster overhaul and so portal-heavy. And I’ve said I’ve always been concerned about culture issues when you do that because you don’t have kids that have been there very long.”
The surprising part of those comments is that he talked about the difficulties surrounding culture issues with new guys, and then pointed out later that this year’s team has 40 new scholarship players, many through the transfer portal.
However, as he further pointed out, that’s quickly become the new norm, and there’s few ways around it. “It’s kind of the world that we live in. I think everybody is experiencing that more than ever on their roster, and I think every place has their own plan and every place does things differently, I would think – I have to speak for myself -based off of what you need to do at that place to win.”
The Pete Golding Factor
Ole Miss has a new defensive coordinator for this upcoming season. Former Alabama Defensive Coordinator Pete Golding took over for Chris Partridge, the Rebels Defensive Coordinator for the past three seasons.
Even with the change, Kiffin is extremely excited. It’s worth noting that Lane has previously worked with Golding while on the staff at Alabama.
“I’ve known Pete and people that worked with him a long time. He’s ahead of the game, very intelligent and great recruiter, as well,” Kiffin said when asked about Golding. He then continued by talking briefly about the transition in coaches. “There’s some transition there with a lot of new coaches and a ton of new players and some that missed spring, like Cedric Johnson who is here today, missed the spring. So this fall will be really important for us in all areas but especially on defense of putting all that together to play good defense.”
There’s a lot of unknowns in Oxford this season, but it’s sure to be a fun ride, regardless. Because whether it’s ranting against NIL and the state of college football, taking responsibility for last year’s failures, or talking this year’s roster and staff changes, when Kiffin is in charge, there’s never a dull moment.
Photo courtesy: Denny Simmons / The Tennessean / USA TODAY NETWORK / USA TODAY NETWORK
