MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla — Lane Kiffin dealt out a welcome dose of reality at the SEC Spring Meetings on Tuesday, doing so live and in person.

Kiffin, the SEC’s undisputed King of Twitter, held court on NIL issues and challenges, adding the new and appropriate term of “preportalling” to collegiate sports vernacular.

The dynamic created by relaxed transfer provisions and players’ ability to earn money via their Name-Image-Likeness dealings has led to unprecedented issues and unintended consequences.

“There’s all the head coaches in here, and I don’t know if anybody has that answer of what to do,” Kiffin said. “They know what they don’t like, they know what to complain about, but no one really has the answer of what exactly to do.

“Like I’ve said, when you talk about making a cap, making salaries, making contracts, well then you have all these employee issues on top of that.”

There’s also the practice of tampering — coaches or program representatives reaching out to rostered players in an effort to get them to enter the NCAA transfer portal — is one of the harsh realties.

Kiffin refers to that as “preportalling,” claiming Ole Miss freshman All-American tailback Quinshon Judkins was “the most preportalled player in America.”

The fourth-year Ole Miss head coach said there’s not much you can do about the issue until fines or penalties get severe enough, and he doesn’t believe that will happen.

Kiffin is a firm believer college football has turned into a money sport.

“You can’t fault them: you have 17- or 18-year-old kids or families a lot of times that don’t have very much in financial resources and here’s your chance to get paid,” Kiffin said. “So the people that say it’s ridiculous for them to choose where to play football or get their degree based off what they get paid, that’s not very realistic.”

Kiffin acknowledges he has been discouraged by Ole Miss officials to get too opinionated or pointed toward other coaches on such issues — like he was last year toward Jimbo Fisher’s elite 2023 signing class.

“When people say certain things it cracks me up, I struggle letting it go sometimes,” Kiffin said. “When someone says that NIL has nothing to do with why someone signs at their place, and they sign the best class in this history of recruiting, I struggle with that statement.”

Kiffin bluntly states it does come down to the money.

“NIL is what kids choose,” Kiffin said. “They don’t choose the size of the weight room, or how many bench presses, or whether they have a personalized computer in their locker.”

But knowing players want and expect money, and knowing what to pay them are two different things.

“In the NFL, you have (certified) agents and you know what contracts are,” Kiffin said. “Here, you have to filter through all the fluff of what someone says the kid has, or what the kid says that he has.

“I don’t fault the kids’ agents or runners, because they are just trying to get the most that they can get, so there’s a lot of stuff thrown out there that isn’t accurate.”

Kiffin likened it to trying to buy a home without the benefit of having “comps,” or a working knowledge of what other properties in the same area have sold for or are being offered at.

“I don’t think anyone in there can tell you this is the market value for the quarterback or receiver with this many years left or coming out of high school,” Kiffin said. “We’re going to have the issues of being leveraged by kids or families or agents.”

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Kiffin press conference without a degree of humor, and the former Nick Saban assistant was ready to offer it up.

When asked about the well-documented phone text thread former Alabama assistants turned head coaches - like Kirby Smart, Will Muschamp andJeremy Pruitt have taken part in — Kiffin revealed there have been some necessitated changes in part to the rotating door of coordinators at Alabama.

“It changes in and out, because the room changes in there,” Kiffin explained. “People keep getting fired, so we have a couple of different ones.”