NASHVILLE – Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin has been one of college football’s biggest proponents for finding a unified plan regarding the NCAA transfer portal and Name, Image, and Likeness to keep schools on a level playing field.

Although Kiffin is all for players getting paid, concerns over programs and boosters being able to pour more into the pot than others have been a common refrain for the coach.

So, when a reporter asked Kiffin during Thursday’s session at SEC Media Days if he’d rank teams in the SEC and their boosters, it was like holding out a piece of meat to a bear.

“I am not about to start putting rankings out on boosters from top to bottom in the conference. God, I want to so bad, though,” Kiffin said, drawing laughter from the media crowd. “The Commissioner said, remember, we've grown a lot and you don't have to respond to every question to show everybody you have the answer. So, I'm going to do that in this situation. But like I said kind of before, you want to look at the best boosters in the country and eventually the schools that have the most money that decide to pay the players, just look at recruiting rankings in the next few years. That will give you your answer.”

Kiffin used the opening statement of his press conference to express his concerns over NIL along with the NCAA transfer portal even further.

He didn’t hold back.

“First off, I've always said that I think it's phenomenal that players get a chance to get paid, which is great. I do think, which I've stood up here and said before when it first happened, that there's going to be some major issues and we're creating free agency with the portal. And with NIL, you've got a lot of pay-for-play going on and that is what it is,” Kiffin said. “Those two things combining, there's not a system in place. I don't think there are any other sports at any level like this, that really, every year, can opt into free agency.”

Kiffin’s comments come despite the fact his Rebels have benefited from the portal exponentially. Ole Miss has brought in 14 transfers on defense alone, and well over 20 as a whole. Still, Kiffin said having to reach that often into the portal has been a position he’d rather not be in.

“I'm not complaining about it because we take advantage of free agency, but at the same time, I don't think that's really good for college football. These massive overhauls of rosters every year, really, is not in the best interest of college football,” he said. “When you add the NIL at the same time, we have created, I've said it before, we've got different caps and no luxury taxes. So, we've got professional sports, because that really is what we are, what's been created now.”

With no caps, Kiffin said whatever programs have the most aggressive boosters will get the best players.

“Now we are adding some states that you don't have to follow the NCAA, and now the university can take their money and give it to the collective to give it to the players,” he said. “So now we really have pay-for-play that the biggest schools with the most donors, most aggressive, and the school wants to spend the most money paying the players to play to come to their school, is where we are with that.”

Unfortunately, Kiffin admits he doesn’t have many answers.

“I feel like in this one; that I don't have the exact solution, because it is so complicated and the Commissioner is much more educated than I on these things. Because I used to say they should be employees, so they can have real contracts, so when they come, you can sign somebody to a two-, three-, four-year contract. But there are way more issues,” Kiffin said. “That solves one problem but opens up more when they are actually employees of the university. I don't have the exact answers. I've always said when asked, shorten the windows so at least we know what your roster is and not so many chances for players.

"Like I said, I like the players get paid, but you don't--there's no other system like it. Like I've told our players. I've told our parents of our significant players, it is a great time to be a kid or a parent, okay, with where college football is. They will probably eventually fix this, so you will see this one window of a couple years where you can literally leverage your program every window or you can go into free agency and find the most money out there.”