Lane Kiffin has done an outstanding job of navigating the transfer portal since Ole Miss hired him in 2020, but the longtime coach wishes it did not have to be that way.
Kiffin opened his media availability at SEC media days on Thursday with a rant about how the current state of college football is a “disaster.” The Ole Miss coach said he is happy that players can now be compensated, but he dislikes how the transfer portal essentially gives student-athletes the ability to become free agents twice a year.
Kiffin feels the new transfer portal and name, image and likeness rules have created “professional sports” without the salary cap or luxury tax.
“That’s the world we live in,” Kiffin said, via ESPN’s Alex Scarborough. “But at the same time, I don’t think that’s really good for college football. These massive overhauls of rosters every year really is not in the best interest of college football. … And I’m not complaining about it because we take advantage, obviously, of free agency.”
Like many others, Kiffin believes the biggest issue is that the top recruiting classes will “follow this donor base and what schools are going to decide to give the most money to the players.”
“So it is what it is. We’ll deal with it like we do with everything else, but somehow it’s got to get fixed because there’s no system around it,” Kiffin said.
As Kiffin said, Ole Miss has directly benefited from the transfer portal. He even took a victory lap after landing one top player last year. Though, Kiffin has also been critical of other programs that outspend his.
The college football landscape has changed dramatically in recent years, and Kiffin and other coaches have no choice but to adjust. That doesn’t mean they are going to stop complaining anytime soon.
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