Ole Miss Coach Lane Kiffin Shocked by Bryce Young NIL Deals, Praises Nick Saban
HOOVER, Ala. — Even though it's his second year at the helm in Oxford, Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin returned to SEC Media Days for the first time in 12 years on Tuesday afternoon and he didn't disappoint.
In 2020, Kiffin gave Alabama coach Nick Saban and the Crimson Tide all it could handle in a 63-48 loss inside Vaught Hemingway Stadium. This year, the Rebels will open SEC play in Tuscaloosa on Oct. 2 and Kiffin is aiming to become the first-ever former assistant to take down his former boss.
"Well, I don't look at it at all about being the first assistant or whatever that stat is," Kiffin said inside the ballroom of the Wynfrey Hotel. "We were close [last year], played really well on one side of the ball, but that doesn't matter now. The year before, I think we lost 66-3 or something like that. So every year is different. Every year has new challenges."
Kiffin went on to praise Saban as the best coach of all time, highlighting his dominance in the modern era of football, while also joking about how the media will inevitably give him "rat poison" at some point this preseason to light a fire under his team.
"I said at some interview on the way in here, the discussion was about Alabama and Coach Saban and the parity in college football, and I said he's done it different than anyone's ever done it and better than anyone's ever done it," Kiffin said. "No disrespect to the coaches back before. There's not supposed to be parity with 85 scholarships and 25 a year.
"My dad [Monte] tells me the stories of coming in and having 75 freshmen in his class coming in. So to do what he's doing nowadays and every year, you guys say something that upsets him and gives him rat poison and makes him mad, and then we have to deal with that. So I don't know what the story line is this year. It will be something that you did about losing too many staff guys or the quarterback or whatever, but he just finds a way, and it starts with recruiting. He just does such a phenomenal job of recruiting. So when you've got the best players and you've got to go against them, that's enough challenge, let alone before you even get into how great he is as a coach."
One of the main talking points with each player and coach in Hoover this week has been regarding name, image and likeness and, when Kiffin was informed of a report that surfaced on Tuesday morning that Alabama quarterback Bryce Young has made almost seven figures in NIL deals, he was floored.
"That number just blew me away," Kiffin said. "You didn't prepare me for that. That's amazing. He made a million dollars and hasn't started a game yet? Wow, I don't even know what to respond to that, but great for him.
"It is neat the players can make money now and profit off of their hard work and what basically everybody else in America gets to do. So I'm excited about it. I think it's very challenging trying to figure out how these things happen and what's legal and what's not in all that. I was asked earlier about it. I said, I'm excited for it. I wouldn't want to be compliance departments, but a million dollars, whew."
Before answering an injury question surrounding one of his returning tailbacks Jerrion Ealy, Kiffin reiterated his shock about the second-year Alabama signal caller.
"I'm still blown away on this Bryce Young news," Kiffin said. "The guy's made a million dollars already? That's good, man. He don't need to play next year against us, then. I mean, that's mind blowing."
Saban and Kiffin's next meeting on the gridiron won't come until over two more months from now but that doesn't mean that his former boss hasn't noticed his humorous and electric Twitter profile.
"He's certainly not on Twitter, we know that," Kiffin said. "Now, Linda, his assistant, is — probably prints them out, especially the ones that he may not like. So he probably does see those. But I think it's all in fun. I think you guys know, are around enough covering us, how much respect I have for him, how grateful I am for him hiring me and the three years together with him and what that did for my career.
"But the respect — like I said, nobody's done it like he's doing it ever. With the scholarships, just should be an asterisk to what was done before, no disrespect to other coaches."
