Lane Kiffin on NIL ruling: "You're opening up a can of worms"
Ole Miss head football coach Lane Kiffin went on The Herd with Colin Cowherd yesterday to discuss a handful various topics. However, he appeared on the show just hours after the NCAA Board of Governors issued support for a ruling that would would allow student-athletes to receive third-party compensation.
Kiffin had some thoughts on that compensation issue of name, image and likeness (NIL). He talked about that, among some other things, with Cowherd. Below are the highlights of their conversation.
On the NIL ruling at the NCAA level:
"I think it's great for (athletes) and it's well deserved. I look back at all those years, three Heisman winners at USC and those guys are getting nothing out of it. Go to Derrick Henry and he's scraping by just to get money to eat," Kiffin said. "But I just don't know how it's going to get managed. You're opening up a can of worms."
The NCAA board recommendation is directed towards name, image and likeness (NIL) compensation. If it passes, student-athletes will be allowed to receive third-party endorsement money. This could range from commercials to compensation for social media posts or selling merchandise.
But Kiffin presents some interesting points. Schools can't pay players under the ruling, but it still keeps that black-market of recruiting open.
"How can you manage donors. They said 'if you come to this school, the day you get here, I'm going to buy 1,000 of your jersey's for 100-bucks,'" Kiffin said. "I don't know how that part is going to get managed, and that part scares me a lot."
On the importance of football in the South
Kiffin has coached in the Southeastern Conference before, as a head coach at Tennessee and offensive coordinator at Alabama. He's also served in both roles at the University of Southern California, giving him a unique view of the national college football landscape.
When asked if football means more in the South, he had this to say:
"I think that's proven, just with attendance. Ff you look at spring games, there's 60 to 80,000 people coming to spring games (in the SEC)," Kiffin said. "That's always been the issue (out West). That's L.A. You have to win and you have to win with style or else they're not coming, because there's so much else to do. It's just different in the South."
That said, there have been a lot of good memories of football out West. Those USC teams with Pete Carrol and Kiffin won 34-straight from 2003 to 2005.
Kiffin will always have a little place in his heart for the now-Pac12.
"There's good and bad to both. College football is best when USC is rolling," Kiffin said. "There's only a few programs that can actually match the SEC, the Alabama's and Auburn's and LSU's. Obviously, USC is one of those."
On recruiting against Alabama, LSU and Georgia:
If you ever had doubts that the SEC is as strong as it's ever been, just look at the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft. The conference broke it's own record, having 15 of the 32 first-round selections the 2020 draft. LSU had five players drafted in the first round; Alabama had four offensive players taken in the first 15 selections.
Ole Miss has to recruit against that. So they have to take a different approach.
"To recruit against them, it's just like when we went to Tennessee," Kiffin said. "You have to come in and say 'hey, we're starting something new. Do you want to come in on the front of something and probably play a lot more as a freshman than if you went to those programs?' It's starting something special as oppose to starting something that's already on top or on the way down."
On differences between coaching in college vs. NFL:
"I like college more, because in college the kids chose where they go, so they're more passionate about the program," Kiffin said. "So they're more invested compared to 'this team picked me or signed me in free agency and I'll be with another team four years down the road.' If you go into an NFL locker room 30-minutes after a game, you're not always sure who won and who lost. It's a business – you're just on to the next one. In college, you can totally tell. It's the investment, in my opinion."
On practice time needed to prepare team for season:
Kiffin has talked a bit in past months about how this Ole Miss team, and others with new coaching staffs, are most at a disservice by missed spring football. They don't really know their players and are yet to implement their system. A few more practice days will help that.
"I think everybody wants at least 30 extra days, an extra month," Kiffin said. "Obviously, we have August but we want July too. At the same time, even though it would hurt us as a first year program – if you only get training camp you only get training camp. It would be the same for everyone. You just would have to manage how you practice better."
Will the season start as intended? He doesn't know. No one does. But he's not super thrilled about speculation that seems to run rampant about playing the season in the spring.
"I think we all want to play this thing on time," Kiffin said. "This stuff I read about playing in the spring, that might be good for us. But all of these first rounders, they ain't gonna play. If you're a first rounder, are you really going to play a season right before the NFL Draft? I don't think so."
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