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Lane Kiffin hasn’t been shy since taking the LSU head coaching job – and his latest comments may have created a headache far bigger than any recruiting battle.
Just weeks after publicly saying he planned to keep a lower profile, Kiffin suggested he left Ole Miss partly because of racism. Now, in a new interview, he may have handed the NCAA a reason to take a hard look at his program.
Kiffin Describes a Fine System Tied to NIL Money
Appearing on Barstool Sports’ Pardon My Take podcast, Kiffin explained how NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) compensation has changed the way he coaches. The gist of it: because players are getting paid – through both school revenue sharing and NIL deals – he treats them more like professionals.
“With NIL and the portal, there’s a lot of problems that have been created. I think with them getting paid, I don’t think that’s as challenging. I don’t think it’s as challenging to get guys to do things because we’re paying you. If you don’t want to do it, there’s a fine system, just like the NFL. I find it’s actually easier.”
He went further, describing how he frames expectations with players directly.
“They kind of, in their mind, think they’re like pros now – which is good. That’s how we talk to them. So you’ve got high expectations. If you want to be a normal student and not really do all those things, that’s fine. Go see the GM and give back half your money if you want to do half the work.”
The logic isn’t hard to follow. Pay players, hold them accountable, fine them if they don’t perform. It works in the NFL. The problem is that college athletics isn’t the NFL – at least not legally.
The NCAA’s Position Makes This Complicated
The NCAA has spent years – and millions of dollars – fighting in court to prevent college athletes from being classified as employees. NIL deals are specifically structured so they’re not tied to on-field performance. Revenue sharing carries the same restriction. Fining players for not meeting team standards cuts directly against both of those rules.
That’s the issue here.
Kiffin isn’t alone in this, though. Deion Sanders made similar comments about using a fine system at Colorado and faced no real consequences. At this point, tying financial penalties to player behavior appears to be widespread across college programs – even if the NCAA’s own rules say otherwise.
Whether the NCAA does anything about it is a different question entirely. The fact that coaches are openly describing these systems in podcast interviews, without apparent fear of punishment, says a lot about how much enforcement power the organization actually has left.
