Curled up at the foot of the office door, whimpering and whining, his tail tucked and paws extended, is a yellow lab puppy named Juice.
As soon as Lane Kiffin’s door is opened, in rushes Juice. He’s one of many new additions here at Ole Miss, such as the team’s 13 transfer portal signees, a class that had some crowning Kiffin as the “Portal King.” Kiffin himself has a new look, too. He has lost 32 pounds in the last 18 months. He’s the lightest he’s been since his days as head coach at USC nearly a decade ago.
“I think I’m the only person that came to Mississippi and lost weight,” he laughs.
But Kiffin isn’t here in his office on a warm May day in Oxford, Miss., to discuss his weight or his new dog. In responding to several questions during a near hourlong interview, Kiffin takes into the world of the current recruiting landscape of college football, thrown into what many describe as “chaos” by new name, image and likeness (NIL) rules.
Often blunt and rarely politically correct, Kiffin opens up on an NIL concept that has evolved into boosters and booster-led collectives, he says, paying players inducements to attend college programs. The subject was at the heart of a public spat last week between Jimbo Fisher and Nick Saban.
Two days before that exchange erupted, Kiffin told SI that many high school players are choosing schools based on the highest NIL guarantee—and he doesn’t blame them—and 100% of them are asking about NIL during recruiting conversations.
Despite those saying otherwise, he believes the current model is, in fact, sustainable, yet it will produce uncomfortable locker-room environments where boosters evolve into team owners, manipulating coaching decisions and so on.
The NIL-disguised inducements are widening the gaps in FBS, he says, further separating the Group of 5 from the Power 5 but also creating more separation within the Power 5. NIL will allow Saban to win more championships, he claims, and he does not believe the 70-year-old Alabama coach will ever retire.
Finally, in a dose of honesty and reality that few care to admit publicly, Kiffin does not understand how college football has not yet moved to a professionalized model.
“We’re a professional sport,” he says, “and they are professional players.”
