Lane Kiffin and Ole Miss -- specifically, Ole Miss's Name, Image and Likeness successes -- keep being discussed in the mouths of the Rebels's rivals.
Last week it was Arkansas Athletics Director Hunter Yurachek imploring a crowd of Razorbacks fans at the Little Rock Touchdown Club to ratchet up their membership to match the "5,000 members" of the Ole Miss NIL movement.
Wednesday, while being asked about what safeguards his program might have to avoid a UNLV situation with that program's quarterback, Matthew Sluka, electing to sit out the remainder of the 2024 season due to an NIL dispute, Auburn coach Hugh Freeze paid a compliment to the job Ole Miss and Kiffin are doing in the NIL space.
Kiffin, who now will follow Freeze in order on the SEC coaches' call through the end of the season after the two coaches flipped slots, was having none of Freeze's roses.
"Well, that's nice of Coach Freeze to compliment our management of our collective," Kiffin deadpanned. "So, I'm sure he'll try to steal Walker Jones like he's tried all of our coaches, also."
A former Ole Miss linebacker in the late 1990s, Jones helps helm The Grove Collective, which is Ole Miss's top third-party venture for NIL components.
Kiffin could have been referring to any number of coaches, but likely at the forefront of his mind was defensive coordinator Pete Golding, whom Kiffin hired away from Alabama after the 2022 season. Freeze likewise had tried to pry Golding away from Kiffin, numerous sources told FootballScoop during the past coaching cycle.
So, what does Kiffin see as a method to safeguard against a potential Sluka situation? He wasn't long on specifics and mostly said the system in place hasn't made it very conducive for programs to be protected.
"I don't know the safeguard part. That's really above me. I don't really know the answer to that," he said. "Well, I mean, they have contracts I guess now. They're not really like professional sports where the contracts are public and as detailed, because they're not employees, I guess, technically.
"Again, it's just a flawed system so we just try to work our way through it the best we can."