Lane Kiffin calls for transfer window to fix the current process

With Early Signing Day and postseason preparation, early December was already a hectic time in college football despite the fact that regular season games are over. With the onset of the transfer portal, it has become even more chaotic. 

On Monday, Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin commented on the situation, sharing his thoughts on all of the moving parts that have emerged as a result of the one-time transfer rule.

“Yeah, there’s gotta be something. I’m sure there will be,” Kiffin said when asked if he supports a specific window in which players are allowed to elect to transfer. “It’s just like right now you’re practicing for bowl games. We have a player not here today because he’s doing his official visit to another place. Just really think about that. Very, very strange.

“I leave a recruiting weekend this weekend to fly really quick to go see someone that’s at another school that’s in the portal. So just a lot of things happening from what was initially a good idea to help kids.”

Earlier in the press conference, Kiffin mentioned the complications that junior college and high school coaches are feeling as their players that previously may have had a home for college no longer have after a program raids the transfer portal. From a college coaching standpoint, it makes roster management more complicated as well.

Additionally, Kiffin referenced the free agency and waiver process in the NFL, one which streamlines the movement. He did not fully call for the process to applied in college, but he offered it up as an example. 

Kiffin closed his remarks on the topic echoing a sentiment commonly issued as a warning to those looking to move schools. 

“I’ve said this before,” Kiffin said. “It’s happened. It’s going to happen more than ever. This sounds great for the kids. There’s going to be thousands of kids in the portal with no scholarships and with nowhere to go. So they basically gave up their scholarship, and they’re going to have nothing because they’re advised that they’re going to have all these things, and they’re really not.”

On the topic of the transfer portal in Oxford, Kiffin has had two defensive lineman enter the portal in the last 24 hours. Sincere David and Quentin Bevins, both veterans who played in 18 and 29 games, respectively, will end their college football careers elsewhere.