Ole Miss Rebels football coach Lane Kiffin makes Nick Saban concession on Transfer Portal

Ole Miss Rebels football coach Lane Kiffin admitted that his stance on the Transfer Portal is not dissimilar to that of his former boss during his Alabama Crimson Tide tenure, Nick Saban.

Kiffin believes that, despite multiple transfer windows being good for his program, it isn’t good for college football as a whole. Kiffin believes one transfer period and real contracts are the way forward.

“Nobody should think it's good that you go to play a player at his fifth school. What are college student-athletes going to five schools for in five years? Everyone should have the ability to transfer — I understand why people think it's good — but there's so much bad to it at that age when you have the ability to leave all the time when things don't go your way. You don't push through anything because they're not giving me the ball enough, I don't like how they talk to me,” Kiffin said during a press conference this week.

“That's not going to help you in real life. And that's too much of what's going on now and it's not the kids' fault. It's the setup. Kind of a (Nick) Saban rant there, but to your question, yeah, one's probably better just to limit that. Once you're there and in spring ball, you're not going, ‘Well, I didn't like how they used me in that Saturday scrimmage. I'm leaving.’”

The Rebels have been beneficiaries of the Transfer Portal over the years, signing 2025 first-round NFL draft pick Jaxson Dart away from the USC Trojans ahead of the 2022 season. Dart’s arrival made Ole Miss a win-now destination that other transfers hopped on board with for three straight recruiting cycles.

Kiffin speaking out against the rules that have enabled his program to have four-straight top-four transfer portal recruiting rankings finishes is a mature sign.

Or maybe it’s a sign that he’s trying to stack the deck in his favor if/when he moves on to a bigger school this offseason. The Alabama and Florida Gators jobs could open up in the SEC. Kiffin has long been linked to the Gators, and the Crimson Tide job has been speculated to be his personal dream job. Perhaps a return to the USC Trojans will be possible if Lincoln Riley can’t right the ship in Los Angeles. There’s already a top-ranked 2026 class there waiting for him.

Either way, Kiffin doesn’t say or do things without purpose. We’ll see how these comments are juxtaposed with his future actions.