Ole Miss' Lane Kiffin says brutally honest approach to NIL, transfer portal 'appreciated' by fans, recruits

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Lane Kiffin hasn’t been shy sharing his thoughts on how NIL and the transfer portal have affected his job as Ole Miss’ head football coach. 

He's been so blunt about it that an appearance on "Marty & McGee" on the SEC Network led the show hosts to question why he’s so frank about those two hot topics in college sports. 

"It’s not like I’m the president, giving the State of the Union," Kiffin said. "President of NIL and portal problems, but I do that because you guys tell me afterward how appreciative you are.

"Or I see fans or players, parents or recruits, and they’re like, ‘Wow. Thank you. We didn’t really know that’s what’s really happening because no other coach talks like that.’"

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Head coach Lane Kiffin of the Mississippi Rebels during a game against the Mississippi State Bulldogs at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium Nov. 24, 2022, in Oxford, Miss. (Justin Ford/Getty Images)

Recruiting players to the Rebels isn’t about selling the facilities, team culture and winning expectations anymore. Name, image and likeness deals, which allow athletes to get paid, have taken over the recruiting process. 

And if a player feels he can find a better deal elsewhere after a year or two on one campus, the transfer portal allows him to somewhere else — "plug and play," as Kiffin called it. 

It’s changed the way Kiffin has tried to create a culture in his locker room, but he knows it’s adapt or die in this business. 

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"Accepting that you’re going to not have phenomenal culture," Kiffin explained. "It