Name: Lane Kiffin on What It's Like Recruiting Players in the Portal Era
Uploaded: 2025-08-29T13:30:56.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Lane Kiffin on What It's Like Recruiting Players in the Portal Era' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-08-29. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Lane Kiffin on What It's Like Recruiting Players in the Portal Era' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-08-29. Transcript available.

I want to talk about the NIL, and then I want to talk about your team and Ole
Miss here.
Does – God, I sound like a sports guy or something.
What am I even doing today?
Yeah, you're getting really, like –
I know, sad.
I feel like going into this, we were going to go a lot of different directions,
and now you've come back to, like – I think people will probably have turned
off by now.
I know, I feel lame.
Oh, dude, hey, tell us about your depth at safety this year.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
How do you guys feel about third down package?
Nobody wants to hear that.
I don't know.
My first down package is pretty small, I'll tell you that.
That's an old wiener joke.
See, then now – here we go.
Now we're more.
There we go.
Yes, they're turning back on.
I want to tell you about the – like, NIL, do you have to spend more time
recruiting players
or boosters these days with NIL?
Yeah, a lot of booster part because they've got to get their resources to pay.
Now that's going to get a little bit moved now with revenue sharing and coming
from the school.
But these last few years has been, okay, well, the boosters have to create
these collectives
and have to source the money to pay the players.
So if you don't have the money, you don't have the payroll, it's hard to get
players.
And if you see – it's not hard.
Look at who just won in basketball, the programs that made the Final Four.
Look at what – you know, the Final Four college football teams.
Like, they're major programs that have a lot of financial resources.
So, yeah, you've got to do a lot of that, and then you've got to convince the
players.
Now, where it's different is the old school, unfortunately, kind of.
The old school recruiting of the relationships and having a relationship three
years
since the kid was a sophomore in high school and stuff.
It's not as important anymore because now I'm like, okay, well, what are you
paying me?
You know, the school is this, the school is this, the school is this.
And most of them usually go to the higher number.
And is that just a real question out of the gate is what is the offer?
Yeah.
Wow.
And do most of them have agents or they have to do that directly by themselves?
Yeah, they now – it's now just transitioned to where most of them have agents
now.
Oh, that's trash.
It's really – you know, we're in my office right here, so I sit here all the
time,
and the recruits sit over there where your guys are and the parents.
And I said to our staff the other day, like, I've sat in so many of these
meetings,
like, whatever, say, the last hundred.
And do you know I never hear anymore, what's your graduation rate?
I never hear anymore, like, what's the academic plan?
And it's just kind of sad.
These are the parents.
It just is what it is.
And then I go, okay, well, when's our NIL meeting?
Yeah.
What's the number?
What's the second-year number?
Like, I'm not mad about it, but it's just kind of sad.
Yeah, you just recognize it.
And I'm also recognizing it to say, I don't believe long-term that's good for
the kids.
So this has been great for players to make some money, but it's so much money
and it's so much focus on the money that then it's like, okay, well, then what's
next?
If I'm already getting the money when I'm 18, then what?
Right.
You've seen this all the time.
People get too much too early, and then what?
They crash.
Crash out.
Yes.
And I feel like we're creating a lot of that in this, and now a kid's sitting
there listening
to his parents out, and they want to know the money.
Like, so what's the kid supposed to want to know?
Yeah, it's crazy.
I agree.
Yeah, it's bonkers, dude.
Yeah, if I'd have had some money, I'd have fucking left school the second you
gave me that
chat.
I'd have driven across country and got me some damn dope, boy.
But I'm sure at that time you thought, man, if I just had a million dollars,
man, I'd have
no problems.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Then life would be great.
I heard all the time of these players, I just get money, man.
Players, I hear from adults.
If I get money, man, all my problems, then I'll be good.
Okay.
We'll see.
We'll see.
When I go in the homes and recruiting over all these years, I see the most
problems
in the families with the most money.
Most money, most success, and then I don't feel any warmth in that room.
I don't feel the connection with the kids.
And then I'll go to a house here in Mississippi or Louisiana, and there'll be
10 people living
in this two-bedroom house, and you just feel the warmth and the closeness and
everything,
and they ain't got hardly anything financially.
But then they have this love and this family, and I've just done this for a
long time, and
I see it usually the other way around.
The bigger the houses, the more cars, the more money, the more problems.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's what they said.
Jay-Z said it, didn't he?
Biggie.
Biggie said it.
Somebody, yeah, whoever said it got murdered, I remember that.
What's one of the biggest things that keeps players that are good players from
succeeding,
do you find?
Their minds.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Yeah, a lot of them run fast, jump, throw, and it's their minds, and then
getting in their
own way.
You know, and then here comes this.
Now you got money, too.
Here comes this ego coming in because I'm a five-star.
I got all these scholarship offers.
Like, the entitlement of that and the ego comes in and out.
Now they got the money, too.
So it's like, they had this drive to get to the NFL because they want to play
in the NFL
and they want to get the money.
Well, I'm getting the money already, so now that's, now I've lost some drive
there.
Right.
And they just get in their own ways, you know?
And they get so much attention so early and so much, and then it's like they
just think
it's going to last forever.
Yeah.
And they just like, they just screw it up, so they get in their own ways.
Dang, boy.
And it's usually that one word, ego.
What's the craziest thing a player's ever asked you for just like point blank?
Have they ever been like, I need a, give me a Jaguar, coach, or something like
that?
Like the animal or the car?
Not the animal.
I wouldn't say crazy.
Like, I don't have a good story, like a crazy thing, you know?
Like, but it just, what continues to blow my mind nowadays is they want more
when they
haven't done anything new.
Meaning like, okay, here's what I got.
I got this to come, you know, to transfer, to come out of high school.
And then they come in like, okay, well, I need more.
And they're like, well, you didn't do anything.
Like, you didn't have a good year.
Well, why, why would you get more?
Like, it's just that mindset of like, I just deserve more.
Like I deserve more and more because there's no, there's no appreciation in
there for where
they're at or like, man, I got to play better to get more.
Just I'm supposed to get more.
And that happens all the time.
There's two transfer portal windows.
So like, if you could negotiate your contract twice a year, every year, but
then for six months,
you haven't done a show, you haven't done anything.
But after that six month period, you want a new contract and a new deal bigger
than what
you had, but you hadn't done anything.
Yeah.
Or maybe you screwed the shows up.
Right.
Through interceptions, but you still want more.
So it's just, and it's not even their fault.
There's the parents.
Now you got agents.
Like, do you still feel like a coach?
Do you feel like a banker more?
It's not really like a banker, but you, you spend so much time not coaching.
And I think that's part of the Nick Saban and, you know, getting out.
It's just like, it just changed, you know, because these conversations, these
things,
and you see the like greed for it, you know, like, but it's, it's a, it's
unique because
from someone that's been fortunate to make money, have success, get to the
highest levels.
Like, it's like, I keep trying to tell them, like, that's not going to be the
answer.
Like that new contract, getting that much more money, isn't going to change
anything.
You're not going to, you know, be happier because of, but it's like, they, they
don't.
You can't hear it.
Yes.
Kids can't hear it.
Cannot.
I can sit in these two chairs right here to some, some, most of them, some will,
but
most of them.
And they just look at me like, there's no way.
I'm like, listen to me until you fix these internal problems, until you fix how
you think
that everybody's against you or whatever it is, these issues that they each
have.
And I'll try to like work through them.
I'm like, that, that money, that new contract, that next car, that next girl,
like, that's
not going to fix that.
And I'm like, if I get picked in the first round, I get that contract,
everything is fixed.
Yeah.
Coach, I don't care what you say.
Type shit.
Trust me.
Yeah.
They say it's all a wrap.
That's it.
Yeah.
Everybody thinks they'll have it figured out.
I get more bands.
It's good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh yeah, boy.
Give me a grand right now.
That's all I need.
I run a 50 right now.
I run a six, one 50.
How fast is that?
Six, one 50.
We don't really grade.
You mean 40?
I don't know.
That's good.
You confuse people.
It might be good.
It might be bad.
I don't know if you're slow or fast.
Six, one 50.
Six, one 50.
Thank you.