Funny thing about the transfer portal.

Everybody does it, everybody talks about. Nobody particularly feels real good about it.

That’s kind of been the message at SEC Media Days as one coach after another is carted up the podium to explain it all.

They’re going to use it, of course, just another tool in the NFL-ization of the Wild Wild West that is college football.

But they insist they do so hesitantly. Just to fill some gaps. Last-resort hole-plugging just to keep up.

At heart, they’re pretty much traditionalists, firm in the belief that you build rosters through recruiting, relationships, hard work.

When they dip into the portal, they give you the feeling it’s apologetically, with gritted teeth. Looking the other way, if possible. If they don’t everyone else still will.

Then there’s Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin.

He’s all over the thing.

They call the SEC’s brash wunderkind the Portal King and he doesn’t exactly disavow the crown. He’s out there welcoming all comers. No apologies.

“We have so many transfers coming in in so many spots, it could be hard to single guys out,” Kiffin said, seemingly unable to give it a finite number. “It just is what it is nowadays.”

He chuckled that while watching offseason film of the newcomers, he and his staff are still learning names.

“There’s the ‘receiver from that school,’ the ‘quarterback from USC,’ the running back from … you end up going like, wait, our whole skill roster was from some other school. (It’s) like we’re an NFL team and drafted them from somewhere.”

Kiffin should thrive in it. He’s a known offensive genius in a fun attack, his play-calling wizardry often punctuated with a joyous toss of his spinning clip board even as the play is developing.

However many transfers the Rebels have, wherever they’re from, that’s probably the allure, and he currently has more quarterbacks than he knows what to do with — not to worry, he’ll think of something.

Kiffin always did go somewhat counter to the grain.

And guess what?

Deep down, he hates the portal too.

He’s also blunt enough to call NIL what it is — Pay for Play, which combines with NIL to give you free agency with no salary cap.

“I’m not complaining about it because we take advantage of free agency, but at the same time, I don’t think that’s really good for college football. These massive overhauls of rosters every year, really, is not in the best interest of college football.”

“When you add the NIL … we’ve got professional sports, because that really is what we are, what’s been created now, and there’s no caps on what guys can make or what teams’ payrolls are.”

He’s telling players and parents alike that it’s a wonderful time to be a college player for them, but they better get while the getting’s good.

“They will probably eventually fix this,” he said.

Right now, he sees three main windows — combined with NIL, three big pay days, so to speak.

And he’s all for players getting money.

But NIL, he noted, isn’t really about Name, Image or Likeness.

The “collectives,” he said, are set up just to get money in players’ hands.

So “You really can get paid three times if you want to. You can get paid coming out of high school. You can one-time transfer, get the most money, get paid again. Then you can grad transfer and get paid again.

“Eventually you’ll not be able to do that.”

Until then?

“A poor system that isn’t getting better is now going to get worse with this … now just look at recruiting rankings and you’re going to see that they are usually going to follow this donor base and what schools are going to decide to give the most money to the players.”

When do the guard rails go up?

Kiffin knows the problems, he said, doesn’t claim to have the answers to how or when the guard rails go up.

“We’ll deal with it like we do with everything else. But somehow, it’s got to get fixed because there’s no system around it.”

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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics. Email him at scooter.hobbs@americanpress.com