Of all the people talking about Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin’s future and if its going to be at Ole Miss or someplace else, one name carries the most weight.
Nick Saban.
Arguably the greatest coach of this era of college football has his own experiences changing head coaching jobs, but he chose not to focus solely on Kiffin during ESPN’s College Gameday.
Saban talked about the bigger, overarching problem that is putting Kiffin, Ole Miss and LSU in an very awkward position.
“Everybody should be thinking about the players,” Saban said. “Players should be able to play for their coach for the entire season. Players shouldn’t be penalized if a coach leaves, because the committee has the opportunity, if a player or coach doesn’t participate, they can sink you in the rankings.
“We need to take a better approach to the business aspect of what we do in college athletics. In the NFL, you cannot leave your team until you’re finished playing. You can’t talk to another coach in the regular season; there’s a defined time where you can talk to them when they’re in the playoffs — that’s the way it should be.
“We shouldn’t have an early signing day that conflicts with people wanting to hire an early coach, a portal situation where you’ve got to hire an early coach or fire your coach early. None of this is fair to the players. So, if we did all that in May, then had some kind of OTA days or something in the summer time instead of spring practice, we wouldn’t have all these issues and players could actually finish the year.”
“This is not a Lane Kiffin conundrum. This is a college football conundrum where we need some leadership to step up and change the rules on how this gets done in terms of coaching searches and opportunities for people to leave.”
Taylor’s Take
I agree a change needs to be made to avoid awkward situations like this one. My only caveat is that the NFL only has to police 32 teams to enforce its rules. There are 136 FBS teams and enforcing rules has never been something the NCAA has been good at.
