Lane Kiffin: The Portal has turned college football players into mercenaries

Lane Kiffin appeared on SEC Network's Marty & McGee, following up on his comments calling college football's current climate a "disaster" thanks to the nexus of the Transfer Portal and the NIL.

Kiffin said the response to his State of the Sport addresses has been positive, and that he often receives well wishes and thank-yous from the media, fans, players' parents and recruits. "Wow thank you, we didn't really know that's what's happening, because no other coach talks like that," Kiffin said. 

Asked how he's adjusted to that new reality, Kiffin said this: 

"Accepting that you're going to not have phenomenal culture. It doesn't mean I don't work on it, but I think I have to realize, hey, it just is what it is," Kiffin said. "One, we don't have many kids that are dying to be here. They didn't grow up wanting to go to Ole Miss. These transfer kids are going to a place that fits them best at that time. It's not about the school. And they're not on their third, fourth, fifth year with you, where, 'Hey, they know how we do it. They know the expectations, the culture, the other players.' Unfortunately now it's like plug and play."

Having coached in college football and the NFL, Kiffin said he used to say he preferred college ball because a much larger percentage of players are living out their childhood dreams by wearing that specific uniform, not just a uniform... but that wasn't the case any longer. 

"A lot of that locker room, that's where they wanted to play when they grew up. In the NFL, it's business," he said. "It just makes for a very different dynamic. We're now moved toward that to where it is really business and I would say the joy is not the same."

So, is Lane telling us all the uncomfortable truth that we may not be prepared to hear, or is he telling us his truth? After all, is it a surprise that a coach who markets himself as The Portal King and who brands his recruiting around #TransfertotheSip would then become a college football nihilist? 

There's not a definitive answer to this question, but I'd love to know how many current Alabama players dreamed of one day playing for the Crimson Tide, and how that number has or hasn't changed since, say, 2010. How many current Ohio State players dreamed of becoming Buckeyes when they were eight years old? 

Is the truth Lane's reflecting inherent to all of college football, or does it just reflect reality at Ole Miss?

Lane would certainly respond that he doesn't want to devote the resources he does to the Portal (41 transfers vs. 33 high school signees in the 2022-23 classes, per 247) he does it because he has to. Ole Miss simply can't compete with Alabama and LSU simply by recruiting high school players, Lane reasons, and the Ole Miss definitely can't compete solely by recruiting out of a pool of high school recruits who grew up Rebels fans.

But, again, perhaps that's just Lane's reality because that's the way he's approached building Ole Miss's roster. 

At Baylor, Dave Aranda resisted utilizing the Portal, reasoning that pursuing a player elsewhere was a snub to his current locker room. After Baylor dropped from Big 12 champions in 2021 to 6-7 in 2022, he realized his approach had to change. But he found that an influx of transfers actually improved Baylor's culture. "We've immediately seen an improvement on the field and in our locker room," he told Dave Campbell's Texas Football earlier this year. "Some of those guys are already our top leaders and that is way cool."

Like anything else in college football, like anything else in life, coaches get out of roster building through the Portal what they put in.

Maybe Lane's become college football's One True Truth Teller, a lone voice willing to hit us in the face with the cold fist of reality. Or maybe Lane just needs to adjust his own reality.