‘I think it’s obvious people aren’t staying within the cap’

ATLANTA, Georgia – It probably should come as no surprise that Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin was the most outspoken coach on the SEC Media Days podium when he was asked about the controversy and confusion surrounding revenue sharing and NIL.

“I think it’s obvious people aren’t staying within the 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?”

On a hard salary cap

“I think that’s what we attempted. Doesn’t seem like that’s working very well. 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, OK, 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.”

On getting an early start

“If you go back to retention of last year’s players and the portal guys December, January, we went into that operating under this cap because we were told the settlement was most likely going to get approved and how that would work,” Kiffin said.

“We get a lot of questions like, ‘What’s it like now?’ We’ve been operating – we have – under these cap guidelines of what was coming and what it was going to look like. I think we’ve done a really good job of that.”

Hovering over every coach at SEC Media Days are questions about revenue-sharing and NIL. It is the front and center in every discussion about football.

SOUTH CAROLINA’S SHANE BEAMER

On what he wants to see

“That what we say is going to happen. That what we say is going to be enforced. For all the talk out there, if there is no teeth to it, it doesn’t matter. What is being implemented with rev share and the clearinghouse, I see other conferences talking about it, saying it’s not going to work and this and that.”

On how it can work

“Something that has some teeth to it and is what it is supposed to be and if somebody is not doing what they are supposed to be doing, there are going to be repercussions. Let it be what it is supposed to be and let ‘s see what happens.”

LSU’S BRIAN KELLY

On the process

“We are early on in the process,” Kelly said. “This is the first step in what we are trying to build. I am excited about college football. I am excited we have something in place in terms of revenue-sharing. NIL is still something we have to navigate. I think we still have to be thinking about how we continue to build or support for NIL. It’s not going away. Nor should it.”

On what is important going forward

“Transparency and consistency. Those two words are probably the most important things as we continue to move forward. … If we start with transparency and start with the clear communication necessary and consistency and approach. It’s got to start with coaches.

:It’s got to start with us. I mean, we have to be the stewards of this. There has to be a moral high ground. Ethics in this. It starts with us. It starts with coaches. I was at a speaking engagement a few weeks back, and every question about NIL was trying to find a way around it, trying to find a way to bring in revenue in some other way.

“Sooner or later we have to take the stand that transparency, consistency, ethics, and morality are at the core of this. If that’s where we are we’re going to be able to move to the next step and be able to continue to make progress.”

This story will be updated.