Kiffin sounds off on 'salary cap' in college football

OXFORD — Lane Kiffin’s reign as the Portal King, something he playfully created earlier this week on Twitter, lasted just one day.

The Ole Miss coach jokingly handed over the crown to USC coach Lincoln Riley, who apparently took over the top spot in the transfer portal rankings earlier Tuesday with the signing of his former Oklahoma quarterback, Caleb Williams.

However, Kiffin wasn’t joking when he addressed how Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) is impacting recruiting — both among high school players and in the transfer portal — throughout college football.

Ole Miss issued a release on Tuesday, the day before the second signing period begins, detailing the additions to the Rebels’ program. Some 13 transfers, including two of the top 10 and five of the top 50 nationally (per 247 Sports), have joined the Ole Miss program in time for the spring semester and spring drills.

With the December signees, the Rebels have inked 14 players with a ranking of four or more stars during their careers, including a pair of five-star recruits. They are among the 31 total new additions, 27 total scholarship student-athletes, so far in this recruiting cycle. The latest transfers include Lex Boucvalt (WR), Mason Brooks (OL), Troy Brown (LB), Jaxson Dart (QB), Zach Evans (RB), Jared Ivey (DL), Danny Lockhart II (LB), JJ Pegues (DL), Ladarius Tennison (DB), Michael Trigg (TE), Dayton Wade (WR), Jordan Watkins (WR) and Isheem Young (DB).

Five December signees: Reginald Hughes (LB), Davison Igbinosun (DB), Quinshon Judkins (RB), Fraser Masin (P), Jarell Stinson (DB), along with walk-on Carter Gibson (LB), round out Ole Miss' early enrollees.

As of midday Tuesday, 18 Ole Miss players on scholarship last season — Jonathan Haynes, Brice Johnson, Patrick Lucas, LeDarrius Cox, Daylen Gill, MoMo Sanogo, DeMarcus Thomas, Jamar Richardson, Sincere David, Quentin Bivens, Jakorey Hawkins, John Rhys Plumlee, Jadon Jackson, Jalen Jordan, Bryce Ramsey, Tylan Knight, Henry Parrish Jr. and Keidron Smith — had entered the transfer portal and/or left via the portal for another program.

“It’s almost like combining a draft class with a free agency class in the NFL in the same timeframe, which doesn’t happen,” Kiffin said. “We just tried to make the best of the situation.”

Ole Miss isn’t expected to sign anyone Wednesday, but Kiffin said the recruiting class isn’t finished.

“We’re still kind of in the transfer world with a few spots left,” Kiffin said, adding that he’d use those spots to both bring in the best available players and also filling some gaps that might remain on the roster.

Kiffin has talked in the past about using the portal heavily. It’s clear, after two years in Oxford, he sees the transfer portal as a way to level the playing field competing against programs with more resources than Ole Miss has.

“They make the rules,” Kiffin said. “I just try to come up with ways to attack them and make the best of the situations they put us in and allow us to be in. I am proud of our staff because I think we maximized it and did a great job. We didn’t lose very many players that had roles here and added a lot. …I just tried to do it better than anybody else does it. I’m proud of that.

“We don’t have the same funding resources as some of these schools do through these NIL deals. So it’s basically dealign with different salary caps. We now have a sport that has completely different salary caps than some of these schools who have, whatever, five, 10 times more that they can pay the players. I know nobody uses those phrases, but it is what it is.”

Kiffin specifically referenced Texas A&M, which, as of Tuesday afternoon, is ranked No. 2 nationally in the Rivals’ team rankings. He said he had joked earlier that he wondered if the Aggies would “incur a luxury tax (for) how much they paid for their signing class.”

Kiffin addressed other topics, noting that both Luke Altmyer and Kinkead Dent would be competing with Jaxson Dart this spring for the starting quarterback job and then saying tight end Michael Trigg Jr. has a unique skill set to create mismatches in the passing game, but the lion’s share of his thoughts were big-picture deep thoughts regarding the future of recruiting and NIL.

“Until they figure out how to do this better, you’re going to see a whole another group (of players in the transfer portal) after spring ball that leaves places,” Kiffin said. “This is an ongoing thing.”

Kiffin has repeatedly advocated transfer windows, comparing them to free agency periods in the NFL.

“The NFL knows what it’s doing,” Kiffin said. “It’s not open free agency all year-round for a reason. You have longterm contracts for a reason. Kids can’t leave at any point of any year all the time. Somehow they’re going to have to, I bet, control NIL. Because as I said before, you have these salary caps at places giving players millions of dollars before they even play and other places not be able to do that.

“What would the NFL look like if there were a couple of teams whose salary caps were 10 times more everybody else’s salary cap? That’s where you’re headed. They’re going to have to do something.”

Asked if he wanted Congress to intervene or if the disparity in NIL was reason for a college football commissioner/czar, Kiffin deferred, saying those decisions were above him.

“I just think you have an issue and it’s why for a long time they made signing classes 25 (players), so everybody was on the same page with that,” Kiffin said. “At some point you’re going to have to do something because, again, there are schools that have no shot to recruit certain high school players because they’re going to get paid.

If a freshman class coming in gets $25 million for their class, that’s $1 million a person for their time there. In free agency in the NFL, players usually go for the most money. Every once in a while, they don’t because they already have a bunch of money. These kids are 17 and 18 years old. They’re going to go to where they’re paid the most. I’m not complaining. It just is what it is. Whenever there are things created, there are a lot of times problems people didn’t think about. So you’ve legalized paying players. People used to cheat.”