Lane Kiffin Probably Right College Football Is Now a Pro Sport

Ole Miss coach is beautifully candid (and right) talking about name, image and likeness

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Go ahead and complain all you want about name, image, likeness.

It's probably not going anywhere and Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin agrees with me.

“We’re a professional sport,” he told Sports Illustrated's Ross Dellenger, “and they are professional players.”

For all of his hijinks, Kiffin has turned into one of the best cutting through the haze and putting things into a much clearer picture.

Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin has a pretty clear picture of the new world in college football. (John Reed/USA TODAY Images)

Arkansas coach Sam Pittman is like that, too, but we haven't heard from him much for the last month or so other than the appearances around the state at some booster club meetings.

Most of these guys talk in circles and generally don't say much of anything, although a lot of folks copy and paste the quotes and you're left on your own to figure out what they say.

As a quick aside, though, once the season starts a coach would be a complete idiot if he told the media an awful lot about what he's doing. His opponents usually have internet access.

The whole mess college athletics is in right now is because some coaches like Texas A&M's Jimbo Fisher refuses to acknowledge what's going on. He's quick to blame the media for lying.

If the lie is being told, the media isn't the one telling it.

The reality is if the Aggies don't have a group getting the NIL money and the word getting out, they are crazier than even the Longhorns say they are.

And if Jimbo doesn't know, he's either lying or incompetent. Take your pick on that, but usually the first one to accuse others of wrongdoing these days is the one that knows the most about it.

It won't go anywhere, though. Media friends tell me all time the NCAA will fix it. That kangaroo court couldn't organize a one-car funeral procession and if they tried it would take four hours and end up across the street from where it started.

Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin with Arkansas coach Sam Pittman before their game in Oxford last October. (Arkansas Communications)

"O.K. Go ahead and wait," Kiffin said in the story at SI.com today. "As a coach and AD, you won’t be there. There will be a new coach and AD. It’s here."

All that's going to happen going forward is some tweaking of things. There won't be any kind of salary cap (Kiffin thinks that could solve things) until there is some sort of collective bargaining from the players.

Good luck on getting that to work out.

A completely new way of looking at college athletics is coming. Probably in five years or less because there are only about eight schools now that are going to be really able to win a national title.

In the college football playoff era, only 12 different teams have ever made it to the playoffs. Only five teams have won the title.

If you're not one of about eight-12 teams you'll have better odds of winning a lottery.

Kiffin knows the realities because the stories are starting to build about players going somewhere for NIL and not one single coach has been accused of using that. Okay, you've got Jimbo accusing Nick Saban of stuff, but you can take what you want out of that childish tirade.

Lane Kiffin throws up his arms at one point in Ole Miss' win over Arkansas last October. (Marvin Gentry/USA TODAY Images)

He doesn't have to in today's social media world.

"There was a player who went to a school that we got beat on and I asked him about the relationship with the head coach," Kiffin said in the story at SI.com. "He had never talked to him. NIL."

Don't worry about it coming anymore. It's here.

Which does, though, finally give Arkansas a pro team.

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