College football’s current recruiting calendar barely resembles the sport’s traditional cycle. In 2017, the sport instituted a largely popular change with the December “early signing period,” giving players a chance to finish their recruitments nearly two months before February’s National Signing Day.
The advent of the transfer portal has created a recruiting cycle crunch, however, putting some of the most important days of the calendar in the middle of bowl season.
Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin has built a strong program during this tumultuous era, but that doesn’t mean he likes how the sport’s recruiting calendar is organized. Ahead of the Rebels’ Peach Bowl showdown with Penn State on Saturday, he went into detail about how disruptive the current system can be for a program.
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“We’re actually kind of, finally, to a normal part now, where today’s Tuesday and we actually play on a Saturday,” Kiffin said Tuesday, during his press conference for the bowl game. “So it’s a normal week for us. We’re just in a hotel in a different city.”
“Previous to this, it’s been a little chaotic with not just recruiting and flying around, trying to get back for practice, a lot of assistant coaches not at the practices,” he continued. “But then, dealing with the portal, going to other universities to see kids and dealing with keeping our own kids.
“So, again, it’s a terrible system. No other—I wouldn’t think any other sports, professional sports, have ever set up a system where free agency starts while the season is still going,” Kiffin added. “So it really makes no sense. You can leave, you can stay, you can go other places, coaches can call you and our season is still going.”
“It would be like before the NFC or AFC playoffs start in a couple weeks, all of a sudden, hey, free agency the week before opens,” he said. “So you can start recruiting other people’s players and fly them on trips and get them to transfer. So really, in a really bad system.”
Kiffin may not like the system, but he thrived within it in late 2023. Ole Miss has one of the top incoming transfer classes in the country, bringing in talented players from a slew of top programs, including SEC rivals Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi State, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas A&M.
The Peach Bowl between Ole Miss and Penn State kicks off at noon ET on Saturday, Dec. 30.
