SEC Media Days: Lane Kiffin Uses Tom Brady, LeBron James To Break Down How College Football Is Now Professional Sport

NASHVILLE — Lane Kiffin began his college football coaching career in 2009 at Tennessee. He began his career as a professional college head coach on July 1, 2021.

On that day, the "amateur" model of collegiate athletics evaporated from existence. Name, Image and Likeness changed everything.

Kiffin, who was in attendance at SEC Media Days on Thursday, continued to voice his frustrations with the current model of NIL and the transfer portal. The 48-year-old understands that he and Ole Miss must continue to play the system, but that doesn't mean he likes how things operate. Both of those things can be true.

As Kiffin has said before, he believes that the current system has created free agency within college football. Many coaches would agree.

Athletes are able to transfer during two separate windows — one in December, one in May. Graduates can do so at any time.

The system affords the athletes the opportunity to put their name into the transfer portal, field NIL offers from programs and commit to the school that offers them the most money. There is also the element of tampering, in which coaches try to poach star players from other teams.

The Rebels saw it play out first-hand with running back Quinshon Judkins during the offseason.

Lane Kiffin will call a spade a spade.

Ole Miss Rebels head coach Lane Kiffin delivers opening remarks during Southeastern Conference Football Kickoff Media Day, July 20, 2023 at the Grand Hyatt Nashville in Nashville, Tennessee.(Photo by Matthew Maxey/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Over the course of the week in Music City, no other coach was willing to break down NIL like the one who resides in Mississippi. Kiffin spent a lot of time thinking about what he was going to say at the podium on his flight from Oxford to Tennessee and ultimately landed on a strong pro sports comparison to drive his point home.

I don't think there's any other sports at any level that are like this, that really, you every year, can opt into free agency. Really, twice a year
What if you had that in other sports? Tom Brady, A'Jai Wilson, Lionel Messi, LeBron James, what if every year those guys can opt to free agency, twice a year, really and they have no long-term contracts? Basically everybody is not even on a one-month contract because they can leave in two windows.

He also spoke to the financial discrepancies from program to program. Kiffin asked the room to imagine a world in which the NFL did not have salary caps or luxury taxes.

That's college football today.

When you add the NIL at the same time, we have created, I've said it before, we've got different caps and no luxury taxes. So we've got professional sports, because that really is what we are, what's been created now, and there's no caps on what guys can make or what teams' payrolls are.

The other element to the professionalization of college football is roster management.

Think about it this way...
I mean, imagine in professional sports -- really, I'm going to give you another window because grad transfers can still leave. They can leave in training camp.
Imagine like in professional sports, which again, we are -- so as far as it is with players, that you're coaching a player in camp and then, you know what, I don't like the way you're coaching me.
I graduated, so I'm going to go. I'm going to go play for another team.

Despite Kiffin's issues with NIL and the transfer portal, he knows how to play the system and has used it to his advantage. Ole Miss added 20 (!!) players through the portal during the most recent cycled.

That can make things confusing.

We look out there and there is times that, you know, we joke, we're like, pause the film and go, okay -- we're like still learning names but we know schools. There's the receiver from that school, there's the tight end from that, there's the receiver from that, the quarterback is USC, the running back, that's -- you end up going like, wait, our whole skill roster was from some other school. Like we're an NFL team like we drafted them from somewhere.

Kiffin has coached on the NFL level. He has spent most of his career on the collegiate level.

ORCHARD PARK, NY - SEPTEMBER 21: Lane Kiffin, head coach of the Oakland Raiders watches from the sideline against the Buffalo Bills on September 21, 2008 at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, New York. Buffalo won 24-23. (Photo by Rick Stewart/Getty Images)

Now, in many ways, they are one in the same.

The SEC is the NFL.

Beyond NIL and the transfer portal, Kiffin spoke to the Southeastern Conference adding Texas and Oklahoma in 2024. It has made the best conference in football even stronger, which only adds another piece to the NFL comparison puzzle.

I already looked at our schedule, the one they put out to 2024, and I joked to Steve Sarkisian yesterday, and I said, well, I don't know any coach that would want to go to the NFL. We are in it now.
Our schedule is like playing in the NFL in the SEC now, especially adding those two.
So hats off to the Commissioner for getting that done and making it the super conference of all time. Really, the way it's set up, it's really kind of like everybody else and then that when you put together the competitiveness of the schedule compared to any other conference.

Ole Miss will open the 2023 season against Mercer on September 2. It will begin Kiffin's third full year coaching a professional "amateur" sport, and the challenge only increases 12 months after that.