By this point, Lane Kiffin’s resume should read: “Ole Miss football coach by day, semi-professional social media poster by night” given the number of times he’s made waves with his comments off the field.
During the SEC Spring Meetings in Destin, FL, Kiffin took a moment to chat with a handful of media reporters, including the Houston Chronicle’s Brent Zwerneman. In a clip shared to Twitter by Zwerneman, the Ole Miss coach took aim at Jimbo Fisher’s assertion that name, image, and likeness (NIL) did not play a factor in Texas A&M signing one of the best recruiting classes ever in 2022:
“I struggle letting it go on those things. My SID tells me to let it go, but when someone says that NIL has nothing to do with why someone signs at their place and they signed the best class in the history of recruiting, I struggle with that statement.”
I asked @Lane_Kiffin at SEC Spring Meetings about occasionally poking Jimbo Fisher with a cyber stick (I didn’t put it that colorfully, but you get the idea): pic.twitter.com/7rKDmJGXIb
— Brent Zwerneman (@BrentZwerneman) May 30, 2023
It’s always an amusing reminder to see that Texas A&M, and namely Jimbo Fisher, continue to hold real estate in Kiffin’s head 24/7. It’s summer 2023, and the Rebels’ head coach continues to dwell on the Aggies’ vaunted 2022 recruiting class.
But as the saying goes, old habits, or perhaps an obsession (in the case of Kiffin) die hard.
That historic recruiting class has driven noteworthy conversation given that it coincided with one of the first fully-fledged cycles of the NIL era. Yet the Aggies weren’t unable to translate that talent to immediate success on the field, with a notable number of players from that 2022 class departing after one season. That truth has opened the door for the likes of Kiffin to continuously be a thorn in the side of Fisher and A&M with one-off jabs.
But an endless amount of one-off comments from Kiffin won’t change the reality at hand: which is that the Aggies will have a leg up when it comes to its donor base given Texas A&M’s high volume of enrollment compared to Ole Miss.
That leads to a more robust alumni network, and thus, more resources to allocate toward recruiting efforts. Kiffin can wind up subtle jabs and as many cryptic tweets as he wants, but at the end of the day it will always remain inconsequential.
Talk is cheap until the score is settled where it matters most: on the gridiron. For the Aggies, that opportunity arrives on November 4 when they travel to face Ole Miss in Oxford. With A&M motivated to even the score on the field, we’ll see whether Kiffin has any barbs up his sleeve then and there.
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