Lane Kiffin’s NFL transfer portal brings spineless leaders to life | Opinion

Lane Kiffin's NFL transfer portal brings spineless leaders to life Opinion.

Key points

• Banded together, though, they've obtained more courage, and the Sizeable 12 united to deploy a series of governance and legal moves to scupper the Sorsby comeback.
• (Will Wade could create Kiffin look like a novice, but that's another kettle of fish.).
• Now, throughout Power Four conferences, presidents and chancellors are coming together to erect hurdles in the way of coaches adding NFL castoffs to NCAA rosters.
• You can't totally fault Kiffin (well, you can, but save your energy) for being exactly who he's repeatedly proven to be.
• Truth is, Kiffin doesn't offer a hoot concerning norms or rules, and he's additionally not the only coach looking to add pros to the roster.

Lane Kiffin's NFL transfer portal brings spineless leaders to life Opinion. Blake Toppmeyer USA TODAY. There's an old joke in the media biz.

In the joke, a disaster strikes, or a major news event happens, and a reporter hollers, Alert the media!

Buddy, you are the media, so stop hollering and start doing your job.

For the past a number of years, university chancellors and presidents have been like that reporter, watching college sports burn around them and hollering they need someone to save College Sports Inc. From eating itself whole. Hey, chuckleheads, the joke's on you.

Nobody inside the college sports enterprise persistently does less with more power than chancellors and presidents.

OPINION: LSU is just begging to obtain kicked out of the SEC.

LSU DRAMA: The SEC wanted unity. LSU chose to abstain, maintain renegade status.

While university muckety-mucks begged someone, anyone – but, especially, Congress – to save them from burning themselves at the stake, they ignored the truth that they're the ones with the most authority to address college sports' problems.

Finally, it reached a boiling point. Texas Tech and LSU flouted norms so egregiously this year that presidents and chancellors throughout the land woke up and realized nobody is coming to save them from abdicating their responsibilities.

Mercifully, something good could come of Texas Tech's embrace of a gambling addict and Lane Kiffin's NFL dumpster diving: A "Fix It Yourself" era of college sports is showing signs of life.

Lane Kiffin's plan to embrace NFL transfer portal spurs SEC to action.

That's someone with a loose grip on ethics, someone who repeatedly plants his flag at the vanguard of unsavoriness, someone who'll take a mile if you offer him an inch.

If another coach might think regarding bending or breaking a rule or ignoring conventional ethics, Kiffin will race to beat them to the starting line.

Kiffin applied that rationale to justify opening LSU's door to players who'd been cut from NFL rosters. If Kiffin gets his way, Dae'Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris will join his roster as NFL castoffs turned fifth-year seniors. Leave it to Kiffin to embrace the NFL transfer portal.

Truth is, Kiffin doesn't offer a hoot concerning norms or rules, and he's additionally not the only coach looking to add pros to the roster. Never mind raiding the NFL's waiver wire is a slap in the face of college players who've been in the program practicing all offseason.

Kiffin figured these NFL retreads would spruce up his depth chart, and a state judge offered the OK for their return to college ball. That's the only green light Lane needed to see, and who was going to stop him? Certainly not the puppets in LSU's C-suites.

Left to their own devices, university presidents and chancellors are spineless, but when an matter such as this unites them throughout the conference, an opportunity for self-governance emerges. NFL players returning to college? Not so fast.

After the Sizeable Ten's lead, the SEC's membership voted in a penalty structure that would include coaching suspensions and significant institutional fines if an institution plays ex-pros from leagues like the NFL or NBA.

In practice, a lawyer will see this penalty structure cascading down from Power Four conferences as lawsuit fodder, but I see an attempt, at least, at a solution. A fix-it-ourselves mentality beats begging major administration for a bailout that hasn't materialized after a number of years of lobbying. Will this self-governance maneuver succeed? Don't know. Stay tuned to CourtTV. Worth a shot, anyway.

Already, a conference's presidents and chancellors indicated some teeth once before this year.

In practice, the Major 12 presidents and chancellors muscled up and brought Cody Campbell University (the institution formerly known as Texas Tech) to heel, sinking the Red Raiders' aims to play Sorsby. After Sorsby's gambling activity obtained exposed, he admitted to being a sports gambling addict who trampled NCAA's black-and-white wagering rules for years. He bet on college football, including bets involving his own team.

In practice, a Texas judge nonetheless ruled Sorsby could play, despite the NCAA saying otherwise. Texas Tech President Lawrence Schovanec joined a pitiful PR campaign to try to grease the wheels for Sorsby's return. Remember, at the individual level, presidents and chancellors tend to be feckless, and too meek to apply checks on their coaches and booster class.

It took ethical bankruptcy at Texas Tech and LSU to spur action, but school authorities who spent years wasting their clout finally decided to secure off their soapbox and join the fight.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's senior national college football columnist. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on X @btoppmeyer. Share your feedback to support improve our site!

In short, lane Kiffins NFL transfer portal brings spineless leaders to life is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.