Ole Miss Coach Lane Kiffin Pokes At "How Much Texas A&M Paid" For 2022 Class

Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin joked about how much money the Aggies have invested in their 2022 recruiting class

Matt Galatzan | Feb 1, 2022

Ole Miss' Lane Kiffin is known for being one of the more outspoken coaches in college football.

And fresh off of what was arguably the best regular season for Ole Miss in more than a decade, Kiffin is still making his opinions on the state of college football known.

This time, Kiffin is once again going after the NIL, and the effect it is having on the balance of college football, even joking about the amount of money the Aggies "paid" for their recent class, which sits as the nation's best on the eve of National Signing Day.

“We don’t have the funding resources as some schools with the NIL deals. It’s like dealing with salary caps," Kiffin said. "I joked I didn’t know if Texas A&M incurred a luxury tax with how much they paid for their signing class."

The Aggies, of course, hold a nation's best 12 signees in the SI99 rankings and are in the conversation for three more of the top remaining uncommitted players.

The Rebels, on the other hand, have been utilizing the NCAA's transfer portal, and are not expected to add any additional recruits of note on Wednesday.

"Somehow, they’re going to have to control NIL," said Kiffin. "You’ve got these salary caps. (Schools) giving players millions to sign before they play and other places not able to do that. What would the NFL look like if two or three teams could pay 10 times more in salary cap?"

Kiffin could have a point, with some schools able to devote a significantly greater amount of money to their athletics budgets, thus creating more opportunities for student-athletes to pursue NIL deals.

Ole Miss, for example, was rated as the No. 24 most valuable college football program in the country in 2021. The Aggies, on the other hand, were tied for the first overall spot with the Texas Longhorns and were valued at $147 million.

Not to mention, the Aggies just approved $205 million worth of renovations to athletic facilities this past November.

"There are schools with no shot to recruit certain players. If a class has an avg of $25M, that’s $1M a person," Kiffin continued. "In NFL free agency, players go to the most money. These players are 17 & 18, they’re going to go where they get paid most. You’ve legalized paying players."

As it stands, the Rebels sit with the No. 22 overall class in the 2022 cycle, well behind the No. 1 ranked Aggies, as well as nine other SEC programs.

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Published Feb 1, 2022

MATT GALATZAN

Matt Galatzan is the Managing Editor and Publisher of Texas Longhorns On SI and Texas A&M Aggies On SI and a long-time member of the Football Writer’s Association of America. He graduated from the University of Mississippi, where he studied integrated marketing communications, with minors in journalism and business administration. Galatzan started in the sports journalism industry in 2014 covering the Dallas Mavericks and SMU Mustangs with 247Sports. He then moved to Sports Illustrated's Fan Nation network in 2020, eventually being taking over as the Managing Editor and Publisher of the Longhorns and Aggies sites a year later. You can find Galatzan on all major social media channels, including Twitter on @MattGalatzan.