Lane Kiffin talks candidly about the current state of college football recruiting given the transfer portal and NIL
OXFORD, Miss. – Welcome to the current state of college football.
Wednesday was National Signing Day, the day where high school football players officially sign a national letter of intent to play for their choice of colleges.
In years past, National Signing Day was almost a national holiday for college football fans, a day they could brag about the talent that would be joining their team in the fall. With the emergence of an early signing day and the transfer portal, Wednesday was almost an afterthought.
How much has the event changed? In his signing day press conference, Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin did not mention a single signee’s name.
“That’s the world we live in now. Your rosters are changing. We have a whole new set of issues to deal with as head coach and coaching staffs. Your roster turns over so much with all these guys leaving and coming in. It does make it challenging but everyone has the same challenges as far as culture and creating that just because you have so much movement.”
Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin
One aspect of the changes is the ability for players to transfer easily. That requires a coach to recruit his own roster almost on a daily basis despite greener pastures elsewhere due to the money made available to the players through name, likeness and image.
“You’re just in a strange time because eventually when that guy plays good, you have to recruit him to stay,” Kiffin said.
“When a (transfer) window closes and we don’t lose significant players in a window, it’s like we’re celebrating keeping our own players that weren’t even in the portal. We’re just keeping them from going other places because it is a constant battle. I know other coaches have the same problem because we obviously talk. When you have a great player like Quinshon [Judkins], he’s one of the most recruited players in the country over the last few months. That’s very challenging and exciting which sounds crazy when a window closes that he’s still here. You’ve seen other very significant players around the country move.”
Coach Lane Kiffin
Judkins signed with Ole Miss last year from Pike Road (Ala.) High School. He went on to lead the Southeastern Conference in rushing and only Herschel Walker ran for more yards as a freshman in league history.
Kiffin does not see an imminent change in the system coming soon; so as long as money is involved, players will continue to move to different programs to better their own situation.
“I think until someone takes a hold and fixes it, you’re going to have these constant issues,” Kiffin said.
“As you guys know, I don’t give coach speak so I come up here and a lot of people appreciate that because I get a lot of messages from people, fans and especially the media, that appreciate it saying, ‘We know when your press conferences come on, you’re going to tell us what’s really going on out there.’ Like I’ve said before, you’ve got free agency windows and you have pay-for-play. I don’t think it’s any secret on what the NIL was intended to be and, if you had awareness, you would know it was never going to happen that way. The way they set it up is pay-for-play.”
Coach Kiffin
Still, as well as Kiffin has done in attracting players in the transfer portal, he still must balance that with signing high school players. Unlike years past, that process has gotten tougher because if a player is suddenly unhappy when he gets to campus, he can jump into the portal.
“I think it’s just gotten really complicated. It might be easier sometimes if you just don’t look at analytics and try to figure it all out. If you just say, ‘Hey, that guy is a good player. We’ll take him.’ I think now, at least in my opinion, you have to look at everything,” Kiffin said. “Where’s the guy from? What’s his personality? Is he the type that is more apt to transfer? You’ve got to weigh in all these things that come with it.”
And even though national signing day has come and gone, there is no time to rest on the success or even the failure of the incoming freshman class. After spring practice, another portal window opens May 1.
Steve Barnes
Steve Barnes joins The Rebel Walk staff as a senior writer and brings a trifecta of journalistic experience. As a writer, he has covered college sports for Rivals.com, Football.com and SaturdayDownSouth.com as well as served as a beat writer for various traditional newspapers.
He has been a broadcaster for arena football and several national tournament events for the National Junior College Athletic Association as well as hosting various shows on radio.
A former sports information director at Albany (Ga.) State University and an assistant at Troy and West Florida, he has helped host many NCAA conference, regional and national events, including serving five years on the media committee of the NCAA Division II World Series.
Barnes, a native of Pensacola, Fla., attended Ole Miss in 1983-84, where his first journalism teacher was David Kellum. The duo has come a long way since that time.
He will bring a proven journalistic track record, along with a knack for finding the out-of-the-ordinary story angles to The Rebel Walk.
Barnes continues to reside in Pensacola a mere ten minutes from the beach because he does have taste and a brain.
