Lane Kiffin claims 'It's obvious' that rival programs are ignoring the new $20.5 million college football salary cap limit
Most of the fallout from the first two days of SEC Media Days was sillier than not, or expected coach speak about the state of their programs. Leave it to Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin to buck the trend, though. While Kiffin isn't always bringing heat, his willingness to speak his mind and explain […]
Most of the fallout from the first two days of SEC Media Days was sillier than not, or expected coach speak about the state of their programs. Leave it to Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin to buck the trend, though. While Kiffin isn't always bringing heat, his willingness to speak his mind and explain how he views the college football world is invaluable.
His latest target beyond Hugh Freeze is the NIL and revenue-sharing landscape. This has been a hot topic amongst coaches since the House V. NCAA settlement was issued, and Kiffin's concerned about whether Ole Miss is at an unfair disadvantage.
Schools are allowed to share up to $20.5 million with their student athletes, and July marked the first month of payments. August 1 brings a new element where high school seniors can start earning offers with revenue-sharing income.
Kiffin is concerned with what he's seen thus far.
“We get a lot of questions like, what’s it like now?” Kiffin said at SEC Media Days. “We’ve been operating – we have – under these cap guidelines of what was coming and what it was going look like. I think we’ve done a really good job of that. Obviously means you can’t sign as many players as you would like at times because you have a budget. So we’re obviously hopeful that will be rewarded by doing that.
“I think it’s obvious people aren’t staying within that cap, so I think the whole thing will be, what does that look like? That’s what we don’t know. What does it look like when you don’t and what are the punishments for that? Do you win and that comes later? So that’s remained to be seen, but already got the questions about the cap, what that’s like having to do that. We’ve been doing that for a while, operating on that.”
Kiffin added at this new set up was supposed to be like a salary cap, as Colorado head coach Deion Sanders had proposed. But the lack of detail within the structure is a major headache to overcome.
“I think that’s what we attempted. Doesn’t seem like that’s working very well,” Kiffin said of the spending cap. “So yeah, I mean, stating the obvious. That was the intention of what was going on because there were so many complaints when NIL started about, okay, everybody has different advantages, and different payrolls. Saw those a couple years ago. I was up here at one of these joking about a luxury tax based on A&M’s spending or whatever it was. So that was supposed to be being fix, and now it’s not.
“Again, we’ve tried to follow the guidelines because that’s what we were told we needed to do. I’m not saying they’re wrong for doing it – I’m not calling anybody out. If the system isn’t solid enough to prevent that, then we really don’t have a system. So you’re not operating on a salary cap.”
