Lane Kiffin sounds off on NIL

It’s no secret that out of all conferences, NIL has been the most prevalent and discussed in the SEC. And at media day, Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin gave his thoughts specifically on booster involvement in NIL.

“If you have boosters deciding who they’re going to pay to come play and the coach isn’t involved in it, how does that work? They just pick who they want and tell you who to play? And when they don’t play, how is that going to work?” Kiffin said. “I’ll say what people don’t say as you know. So, it’s like a payroll in baseball, what teams win over a long period of time? Teams that have high payrolls and can pay players a lot. So we’re in a situation not any different than that. I’m sure other people have said it, I said it say one, you legalized cheating so get ready for the people that have the most money to get the best players and there you have it. So it is what it is.”

Kiffin also compared the current state of college football with NIL to professional sports.

“And as far as a general manager to manage that, we aren’t allowed in the current system to manage what they make. We’re not there yet and I don’t know that we ever will be, that’s just what I said it should be because that’s what any other professional sports, which is what we are now, does,” Kiffin said.

Kiffin additionally suggested that more rules and regulations should be implemented surrounding NIL, bringing up the idea of a potential salary cap, adding that the lack of NIL regulations created a massive set of issues that could’ve been predicted from a coach’s standpoint.

“This was not thought out, at all, and has created a massive set of issues, which I think when most people thought about it from a coaches’ standpoint, could’ve predicted this was gonna happen,” Kiffin said.