Lane Kiffin addresses 'unfinished business' and 'quality signees' in National Signing Day press conference
Ole Miss football head coach Lane Kiffin entered the makeshift press room under Vaught-Hemingway Stadium with a list of 11 high school signees (as of this writing) from this morning for his signing day press conference.
Although accommodating with the barrage of questions he faced, it was easy to detect he really didn’t see the need in this particular presser because of the uncertainty of the whole recruiting situation.
Meaning, there is still a mountain of evaluation, ciphering and recruiting to do before next year’s roster is solidified.
“I can’t give you numbers of how many more we will sign. I can’t give you positions of need, and I know that is a question you want to ask,” Kiffin said. “There is so much undetermined now. Will some of our players in the portal want to come back? Will more of our players enter the portal after the bowl game? How many more players from other schools will enter the portal? Will we get more high school players for the second signing period?
“I don’t know the answers to any of those questions.”
The “new” landscape of recruiting, if you can still call it that with the advent of NIL, is, to put it bluntly, a quagmire.
“That’s too big a word for me, but it is certainly different now,” joked Lane when asked if he was frustrated by the way procurement of players and roster structuring is now. “It just is what it is.”
Kiffin was obviously pleased with the 11 – at that time – high schoolers he and his staff had inked.
“We’ve got some quality signees. We expect some of them to play quickly,” Kiffin said.
But it all still came back to “what’s next?”
“The 25 limit doesn’t matter anymore. It’s all about the 85 limit on scholarship players,” Kiffin said. “We have a long way to go before we can figure out who is going to do what.”
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For instance, Kiffin was asked about running back Zach Evans, who is eligible to go pro if he chooses, and if he thinks one of his star ground gainers will come back.
“We’ve talked with him about all of his options and he’s still weighing all those options,” Kiffin said. “We also have two or three more who could go pro or could come back and we don’t know what they are doing yet either.”
As you can tell, there’s still a lot in the air and it’s a novella on recruiting that may not be finished until the summer. Remember how late the Rebels got Central Florida transfer receiver Jaylon Robinson last year?
Expect more of that this year – late signees and arrivals.
Once again, as Kiffin said last year, the meshing of the roster in spring and summer and August practice will be critical because – once again – so much of the roster will be different from 2022 to 2023.
The icing on the recruiting cake?
Of course, NIL – name, image and likeness.
He pointed to the $40 million dollar Manning Center renovation underway and said, “I get asked 100-1 questions about NIL over this great facility we will have.”
In short, early signing day had some good things – Suntarine Perkins, Ayden Williams, Kedrick Reescano, et al – transpire, but as the melancholy Carpenters once sang –
“We’ve only just begun.“
Hold onto your hats – more to come.
