Lane Kiffin blames widespread tampering on timing of 'extremely flawed' NCAA transfer window

The college football transfer portal window for players to enter is fast approaching, and that means tampering is picking up, according to coaches. And Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin excoriated the NCAA and Co. for saddling college football with, in his eyes, a flawed system.

Kiffin’s main issue arises from the timing of the transfer portal window opening in the fall, with players obliged to inform their program they’re entering it prior to some seasons being over. That timing — which is borne from the fact college athletes are still required to be enrolled in school and the academic calendars aren’t tailored around football — is one of the main issues Kiffin has.

“I don’t really worry about what we can’t control. I mean that happens, a lot. So just try to keep our guys focused,” Kiffin said on the SEC coaches teleconference on Wednesday. “Again, it’s a really poorly thought-out system of the windows, when they are and people tamper all the time. It’s just — so we just try to maximize the really poor system that’s been set up and try to avoid the distractions.”

He paused, then added on to his answer.

“And part of it — to finish that — part of the problem of the really poor system is creating these free agency windows and they happen before a season’s not even over,” Kiffin said. “So, you’re just basically inviting kids to wander mentally and to get tampered with because when the windows are, people are still playing. Can you imagine the NBA or NFL, if free agency were to start in the playoffs? It would never happen. I don’t know that it’s very talked about but just think about that for a little bit.”

Adding to the complexities and complications — and Kiffin’s ire — is the NIL component fueling player movement.

“I mean that’s just part of, again, an extremely flawed system,” Kiffin said. “Like the question earlier about tampering, well not just the tampering, they go and offer money. A number. So you’ve got young kids going ‘Wait, I can go and make that much money somewhere else? If I go in the portal and leave?’ So, that’s just really — we don’t have enough time on this call for all the problems with the system and how not-thought out it was. 

“It’s a very reactionary system. Even the tweaks a lot of the time are just reactionary instead of really thought out.”