Ole Miss football coach Lane Kiffin took the podium at the SEC spring meetings Tuesday and used the platform to address several hot-button issues in college football, including roster limits, salary caps and signing players to multi-year contracts. He used Jaden Rashada’s NIL lawsuit against Florida to criticize the NCAA for rushing major decisions.
“An issue is we have had a lot of new changes in college football over the last few years,” Kiffin said. “I understand why some of these decisions are made, but they are not completely thought out. Some are rushed and don’t have everybody’s input. These people make the rules and just think, ‘OK well, this is how everybody will follow them.'”
Kiffin also discussed the “weird” atmosphere in Destin, Fla., following Nick Saban’s retirement, revealing that Georgia head coach Kirby Smart has taken the lead at meetings. He also touched on his expectations for Ole Miss next season and whether the Rebels’ collective went all in on 2024.
Here’s what Kiffin said at the SEC meetings Tuesday:
ON NICK SABAN, KIRBY SMART AND THE CHANGING OF THE GUARD IN SEC
“I miss coach Coach (Mike) Leach. He was awesome to be around. We went all the way back to Pac-10 meetings. It was very strange not having Coach (Nick) Saban here. I was in meetings in 2008-09 at Tennessee with Coach Saban, and Greg Sankey was the assistant commissioner. Sankey and I are the only ones left with Coach Saban gone. It was definitely strange not having Coach Saban in there. Kirby (Smart) has taken over and is kind of the lead now.”
ON THE POTENTIAL FOR ROSTER LIMITS IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL
“I don’t have a great sense of where that’s going. There are meetings with athletic directors that will have a lot to do with [roster limits]. Obviously, something’s coming. We’ll just adapt to whatever that is. We’ve done a good job at Ole Miss of adapting to rule changes and different things, whether that’s been the portal or NIL. So, whatever they end up coming up with, we’re going to try to make the most out of it.”
ON NEGATIVE SIDE EFFECTS OF ROSTER LIMITS
“There’s some safety issues. How do you practice? How do you play if the roster numbers are low? You’ve got to overplay players in some games where you didn’t have to in the past. There are some very big safety concerns. It also affects the ability to practice well enough to develop younger players. We want to be like the NFL in some ways but not in other ways. You want to make these limits but we don’t have practice squads. We don’t have the ability to bring players in each week and try them out when there’s an injury. It’s really complicated.”
ON JADEN RASHADA’S NIL LAWSUIT AGAINST FLORIDA
“I don’t know all the details of the Florida situation. An issue is we have had a lot of new changes in college football over the last few years. I understand why some of these decisions are made, but they are not completely thought out. Things happen that weren’t intended initially. Some are rushed and don’t have everybody’s input. These people make the rules and just think, ‘OK well, this is how everybody will follow them.’ I always point back to NIL and what it was intended to be, and 98% of it is not. It’s pay-for-play.”
ON THE ROLE OF COLLECTIVES UNDER A ‘SALARY CAP’ MODEL
“A lot of people say, ‘OK, this is great. We’re going to have this cap and revenue sharing.’ OK, but you’re still going to have collectives. If you still have collectives, how are you going to have a cap? You’re also going to have traditional boosters that have always been around college football, especially the SEC. So, are you really going to have a cap? Or does it just sound like a cap? That’s a big difference.”
ON MAKING PLAYERS SIGN CONTRACTS, POTENTIAL BUYOUTS
“Forcing buyouts on kids would be challenging, especially legally. Are they employees? It sounds good, but it’s a little complicated. We don’t really have a system. We might be creating more problems trying to come up with solutions. I used to say we should have contracts with players, but I understand there’s a lot of legal issues. We talked about NFL models, but we don’t have contracts. So, they can leave multiple windows a year. I don’t know that we’re going to get that answered.”
ON OLE MISS’ 2024 ROSTER
“This is definitely the best roster we’ve had. I don’t know that it’ll be the best team. There’s a lot still to be figured out. Some of the significant players we have were out for spring. We’ll have a lot of work to do to bring them together to be the best team. Last year, we won 11 games, the most in school history. The roster is better than that but there is a lot of work to do to be a better team.”
ON WHETHER THE REBELS’ COLLECTIVE WENT ALL-IN ON 2024 SEASON
“We are always trying to maximize the situation. Our collective has done a great job. Our donors have done a great job. Our coaches have done a really good job of assembling talent. It wasn’t like, ‘OK, we’re putting all our chips in for one season.’ We happened to have a lot of really good players that could have gone to the NFL come back. We signed a lot of really good portal guys. We just won 11 games. It wasn’t like we had some tough years and were going all in to save our jobs.”
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