GREENSBORO – The ongoing confusion over the implementation of the NCAA’s current NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) rules continues to be a hot topic in college athletes.

Georgia president Jere Morehead understands this better than most.

Morehead is the chair for the NCAA Division 1 board of directors, which last month began focusing on collectives that established NIL deals for recruits and current team players.

Earlier this week, Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin weighed in on the subject in a story published by SI.com.

“We’re a professional sport and they are professional players. Contracted employees without contracts. They can get out whenever they want,” Kiffin said. “How is it not being seen that, unless there are changes of rules around caps and contracts, how is every elite college player not at the end of their season?”

Speaking to reporters at the spring meeting at the UGA Athletic Board, Morehead said Kiffin raises a good point.

“Well, I think NIL has evolved in a way that was not intended. It was intended to reward student-athletes for their name, image, and likeness, as student-athletes enrolled at college institutions,” Morehead said. “It’s clearly become something different than what it was intended. I believe we’ve got to have some very clear rules that do not lead to the professionalism of college athletics.”

Morehead said it’s imperative that some kind of framework be in place before the current issues with NIL get totally out of control.

No doubt, Alabama head coach Nick Saban would agree.

Saban’s recent accusation that Texas A&M used NIL to “pay” for its recruits, drew the ire of Aggies head coach Jimbo Fisher, who hurled accusations of his own towards the head coach of the Crimson Tide.

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey reprimanded both coaches.

The annual SEC spring meetings get underway Tuesday in Destin, and no doubt NIL will be a large part of the discussion.

“You probably saw the action that the Division I Board of Directors took a few weeks ago at the NCAA, which was a strong statement by the board that we want the enforcement staff to enforce the rules that exist related to recruitment,” Morehead said. “I believe in the long term that we’re going to have to have a more formalized process whether that comes from Congress or can come from the actions of the NCAA. We clearly need a strong framework that governs the conduct that every institution engages in when it comes to NIL.

“How we get there, and when we get there, is an open question. But right now, I hope the enforcement staff feels like they’ve been given a green light by the Division I Board of Directors to investigate some of the cases that have gained a lot of national attention.”

If nothing changes, Morehead fears what college athletics will ultimately become.

“It’s gone beyond what that framework was expected to be. And I think we have to make sure that guardrails do exist, that it doesn’t become a situation where student-athletes are making choices based upon the highest bidder in choosing colleges,” Morehead said. “So, I think some work’s got to be done there. I think some work’s got to be done with the transfer portal.

"We’ve got, again, a great leader, co-chair of our Division I transformation committee, Greg Sankey, along with Julie Cromer, the athletic director at Ohio University. They’re leading our Division I transformation committee every Tuesday afternoon through important discussions of all these issues. And I’m hopeful that we can ultimately come up with a series of rules that will effectively govern us in a collegiate model.”

Like the current NIL policy, Morehead said there needs to be a different framework in place, there too.

“The portal has gotten a little beyond what was anticipated. You remember the transfer rules were relaxed to make it easier to transfer. But now student-athletes are jumping in and out of the portal in a way that’s creating a lot of instability for teams and their team rosters,” Morehead said. “That’s not really good for the sports that they are a part of. So, I think again we need a reasonable framework to govern the transfer portal. And I’m hopeful that we can get to that point.”