At halftime of Saturday night’s 51-10 victory over Clemson, when LSU led 31-3, Tigers coach Lane Kiffin capped an on-field interview by saying, “Imagine if we had professional players.” After the game, Kiffin was asked about his halftime joke. “What’s the difference?” Kiffin said. “Everyone hates you. They can’t hate you much more. So there you go. You have another line.” Kiffin took solace in the fact that the NFL transfer story did not loom over the outcome of the game. “I’m really glad they played the way they did, so that wouldn’t have been the story,” Kiffin said. “Because I get it…even if we had won close and kind of ugly, the whole story would have been, ‘Man, I ruined the team by doing this.’ And this morning I said, ‘You can’t be okay with that.’ I’ve been criticized pretty hard for the last two weeks for doing that. . . . But my job is not to pander to you and worry about what you’re going to write. My job is what I think is right and I think we’re fighting for what’s right for those kids. “I’m not going to go into all the reasons, but that’s what I believe. And a lot of people don’t like that, but they don’t understand it.” Still, Kiffin knew or should have known that his effort to bring back players with NFL preseason and offseason experience would have sparked a backlash, especially at a time when the powers that be are looking for anything they can use to get Congress to clean up the mess that has arisen directly from the implosion of decades of antitrust violations. They’ve been huffing and puffing about the return of the “pro players” to college football, while ignoring the fact that college football players have become pro players. They have been overlooking the fact that Nick Saban once brought an NFL free agent (Trent Richardson) back to campus to practice against college players and have been sinking their teeth into the false notion that returning pro players will displace current players, ignoring the basic reality that current players are displaced all the time, by transfers and other recruits. entrants. Maybe he’s just not afraid to do what’s right for his team, even if the strategy plays directly into the hands of those who hope to turn the current chaos into an antitrust exemption that allows players to restrict their income and limit their mobility.
