Thanks to a pair of major changes enacted by the NCAA last year, college athletes now have a transfer portal that looks a lot like free agency, and an opportunity to profit from their names, images and likenesses that marks a sharp break from lingering notions of amateurism.
Leave it to Lane Kiffin to spell out what it means for college football in candid fashion.
"We're a professional sport," the Mississippi coach said in recent comments published by Sports Illustrated, "and they are professional players."
Over a number of eye-opening remarks in a lengthy Q&A with the website, Kiffin struck the pragmatic tone of someone well aware that the college football landscape has been dramatically transformed, and that coaches and players alike would be well-advised to make the most of it.
"It's totally changed recruiting," he said. "I joke all the time about it. Facilities and all that. Go ahead and build facilities and these great weight rooms and training rooms, but you ain't gonna have any good players in them if you don't have NIL money. I don't care who the coach is or how hard you recruit, that is not going to win over money."
In addition to delivering blunt takes on the impact of NIL and donor collectives on recruiting and coaching decisions, the 47-year-old Kiffin offered analyses of SEC rival Alabama that should both comfort and alarm Crimson Tide Coach Nick Saban.
“People are going to criticize me for saying that 'people are paying them to come in' by saying that's not what is happening. That is exactly what's happening.”
According to SI, the interview with Kiffin took place two days before Saban and Texas A&M Coach Jimbo Fisher got into a very public spat over the former's accusation that the Aggies "bought every player" in their top-rated recruiting class with NIL deals. Fisher, a former Saban staffer, responded by denying his program "bought anybody" and blasting the Alabama coach as a "narcissist" who had grown too accustomed to dominating the recruiting ranks.
Saban subsequently backtracked and asserted that his issue was not with Fisher or the original concept of NIL, but rather with how donors have been using the new rules to organize into collectives. The aim of these collectives, which are not officially affiliated with the programs they support, is to create pools of NIL money to incentivize prized prospects to choose their preferred school.
Among the programs linked to collectives are Texas A&M, whose donors have banded together with "The Fund," and Alabama, through High Tide Traditions. The Tuscaloosa-based enterprise explains on its website that its mission is to "harness the power of name, image and likeness with student-athletes to make and propel positive business relationships across the city, state, region and nation."
Kiffin chose a different description: "You basically made what was cheating before legal."
His on-the-record assessment jibed with a recent report that some in the coaching community are joking that NIL stands for, "Now, it's legal!"
"People are going to criticize me for saying that 'people are paying them to come in' by saying that's not what is happening," he told SI. "That is exactly what's happening."
Big-money boosters have always had a say in the direction of major programs, but apart from under-the-table arrangements with recruits, their influence has often been publicly reflected in a willingness to put together the piles of cash necessary to hire — and then buy out — big-name coaches. Now, Kiffin noted, donors have goals they want to see coaches deliver that don't necessarily have to do wins, losses and bowl games.
"Let's say reports are true, and some high school quarterback is making $6 to $8 million," Kiffin said. " … Are the coaches going to need to play him, or are donors going to be mad when he's not playing — the first-round pick that the donor drafts. I've been in that situation. The people paying that are going to want that guy to play. If he's not playing, how is the backup quarterback who is earning just a scholarship check going to play over him?"
In that context, Kiffin likened a hypothetical, deep-pocketed college program booster to an NFL team "owner." He spoke from experience, having been fired as head coach of the Oakland Raiders early in the 2008 NFL season, his second with the team. Then-Raiders owner Al Davis displayed his oft-combative temperament at a news conference where he asserted that among the reasons for parting ways was Kiffin's antipathy toward quarterback JaMarcus Russell, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2007 draft.
"I've been there, where the owner calls and says, 'We need to play this guy!' And I say, 'No, we need to play this other guy.' I'll tell you what happens — you get fired," Kiffin told SI. " … What's going to happen when the lead donor calls and says to play this guy, and you don't — do you not get fired?"
Saban, a seven-time national champion, including six at Alabama, probably doesn't have to worry about getting fired anytime soon. In fact, Kiffin suggested that the Crimson Tide's long-standing advantages in booster support would stand it in good stead amid college football's brave new world.
"If you're Alabama, how does your gap not continue to widen? If you have NIL, you can get the players," said Kiffin, who spent three seasons under Saban as an Alabama assistant. "You were already signing No. 1 classes. Now there's a money factor involved, and you have top resources for that, and you have the [transfer] portal. … You get the best players, have free agency to pluck the best players. He'll be there forever. He might double his championships."
Ever happy to engage in a troll job, though, Kiffin couldn't resist positing a scenario involving Tide quarterback Bryce Young that could have Saban wincing.
"If you are advising Bryce Young," Kiffin said to SI, "why do you not go into the portal and walk into Nick Saban's office and say, 'Hey, I want to be here, but I've got to protect myself so I'm going to go into the portal. And I want to come back as long as it's matched with what I get out there.' The kid would make 10 times what he would have made. How's that not going to happen all the time? It should. It will."
Kiffin is probably correct about that, and more than a few football and basketball coaches might benefit from adopting his clear-eyed view of their sport rather than wishing things could go back to a simpler, less player-friendly time.
