Lane Kiffin knows how to work the NCAA transfer portal. Ole Miss raided the portal for top talent ahead of the 2024 season as it looks to break through and make the expanded College Football Playoff.

Kiffin, though, still stands by his assessment that the current college football landscape is a “disaster” when it comes to managing the transfer portal and NIL rules.

In his first press conference of spring practice, Kiffin was asked if he feels he has grasped the right way to manage roster turnover and team chemistry in the portal era. Kiffin opened his answer by taking aim at the portal system.

“So, there was a system that they put in place. I said in the SEC meetings, in college football with regards to the portal, NIL is a disaster. I said that last year, and then they really changed a major thing in the system. And now everybody can transfer multiple times. So that creates really different ways of going about this. And, you know, now you’ve got to worry about losing all your guys multiple times, twice a year because there’s as of now there’s two windows.

As he continued, Kiffin endorsed contracts for players as a potential fix. The Ole Miss head coach would prefer to have compensation numbers out in the open, as opposed to the current NIL approach.

“So I think that you could have had a plan and maybe you could say our last year plan worked well because we won 11 games and were very portal-heavy. And now you got to adjust again. So it is what it is until they figure out some semblance of a system that would model professional sports, and these would be employees, and they would have real contracts and everybody would know.”

Kiffin was candid in recognizing that he is a critic of a system that serves Ole Miss well. To much fanfare, Ole Miss signed the No. 1 transfer portal class, as ranked by 247Sports. The Rebels picked up 17 portal commitments, 8 by blue-chip prospects (1 5-star, 7 4-star).

“I’m the first to admit Ole Miss, as much as anybody, benefits from the transfer portal and the system,” Kiffin added in his portal answer. “And I’m telling you, even with that, how much it helps us personally, it is a disaster. And it got worse. So it is what it is. We’ll just always continue to adjust as they continue to make the system worse.”

Appreciate Kiffin’s candor. And take him seriously.

Kiffin has been the butt of many jokes and trolls over the years. He has experienced his share of egg-on-his-face moments at Oakland, Tennessee, USC, Alabama, FAU and Ole Miss. Despite all that, he enters 2024 coaching a team with Playoff buzz.

When it comes to the transfer portal and NIL, Kiffin is speaking as a fifth-year SEC head coach who has learned how to use a broken system to his program’s advantage. It would serve Kiffin’s self-interest to defend the current system as player-friendly.

Instead, Kiffin is speaking out as the sport that has been his livelihood for multiple decades is at a crossroads. Kiffin’s contract suggestion may not solve all the issues, but dismissing him as Joey Freshwater or the coach who tweets too much would be a big mistake.

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