Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin questioned why Alabama quarterback Bryce Young did not enter the NCAA transfer portal and use it as leverage to increase the Heisman Trophy winner’s NIL earnings.
“Why did Bryce Young not go into the portal?” Kiffin said during a Sports Illustrated interview last week that was published Wednesday. “If you are advising Bryce Young, why do you not go into the portal and walk into Nick Saban’s office and say, ‘Hey, I want to be here, but I’ve got to protect myself so I’m going to go into the portal. And I want to come back as long as it’s matched with what I get out there.’
“The kid would make 10 times what he would have made. How’s that not going to happen all the time? It should. It will.”
Young is the projected No. 2 overall pick in the 2023 NFL draft by ESPN, which assumes he will leave college after his upcoming junior season.
Less than three weeks into the NCAA’s rule change about NIL last July, Alabama coach Nick Saban said Young had already amassed close to $1 million in NIL deals. It is not known how much Young has made since last summer, but Saban said at a World Games event last week that 25 players from Alabama last season earned NIL deals totaling $3 million.
The Athletic reported earlier this offseason that a five-star 2023 recruit with his school’s NIL collective that would pay him $8 million by his junior season. Some believe that player to be Tennessee signee Nico Iamaleava.
Although Kiffin suggested Young should enter the transfer portal, none of Alabama’s highest-performing players have done so. Eighteen of the Tide’s scholarship players have gone into the portal since last season but none were full-time starters in 2021.
The deadline for fall sports athletes to have entered the transfer portal and be able to play immediately next season was May 1.
Mike Rodak is an Alabama beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @mikerodak.
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