College football teams are scrambling to retain players heading into 2026, and the exploding NIL market is at the center of it. More money has made players more mobile, but not every college is feeling the pain. As Ole Miss absorbs the fallout, Dabo Swinney and Shane Beamer have emerged with a built-in safety net that could protect their programs while others scramble to adjust.

TJ Dottery’s NIL deal leaked in Oxford, but that didn’t faze Ole Miss, and tensions spiked. Dottery grew unhappy, and the Rebels briefly lost their defensive star to the transfer portal.

Even though Lane Kiffin eventually got Dottery at LSU, the situation exposed a significant issue. The challenge of keeping NIL contracts under wraps. South Carolina responded quickly. The state’s House passed a bill making NIL and revenue-sharing contracts at public universities private and exempt from FOIA requests.

It’s an apparent attempt to stop future leaks. And if it holds, it could give Shane Beamer and Dabo Swinney a real edge by protecting roster stability and locker-room trust.

For both South Carolina and Clemson, this move feels like a quiet cry for help. The Gamecocks lost around 23 players to the portal. On the other hand, the Tigers saw 14 exits. Some of that was because of their terrible performance in 2025. South Carolina went 4–8 and finished 15th in the SEC, and Clemson struggled to 7–6.

But it’s challenging to believe cash didn’t play a role in at least a few of those departures. And after what happened at Ole Miss, that suspicion feels justified.

The chaos in Oxford reportedly created a real locker-room blunder. Returning players found out that incoming transfers were making more money than they were, and morale took a hit. No one ever proved who leaked TJ Dottery’s NIL contract, but the damage was done. Losing a linebacker who posted 98 total tackles was a brutal blow for head coach Pete Golding.

It didn’t stop there. Edge rusher Princewill Umanmielen followed Dottery out shortly after the leak. Within the same 24-hour window, Da’Shawn Womack entered the portal, and wide receiver Cayden Lee also walked. At that point, it was a roster bleed. That’s the backdrop for House Bill 4902. Under the old law, schools had to disclose NIL contracts if they were considered a “party” to the deal.

H.4902 removes that. It makes all NIL and revenue-sharing contracts private, regardless of university involvement. The law even makes the documents tied to negotiating those deals confidential. Schools can disclose only the total aggregate amount spent on revenue sharing each year. The bill goes even further. It applies retroactively to any pending disclosure requests that haven’t reached a final ruling.

Lawmakers fast-tracked it, skipped the long committee process, and passed it 111–2 on January 16. Now it heads to the Senate for debate. Funny how it works. One leaked contract and suddenly, an entire system changes, all sparked by TJ Dottery, who now finds himself reunited with his former coach in Baton Rouge.

Lane Kiffin wants to take everyone from Ole Miss?

Apart from bringing LSU back into national relevance, Lane Kiffin took another oath, and that’s to strip his former workplace of everything. The LSU head coach wasn’t done disrupting the entire locker room and taking out half the assistant coaches.

He is still going after Ole Miss’s employees, and the worst part is that he is actually succeeding. Pete Golding is now losing assistant strength and conditioning coach Jordan Sims to the Tigers, marking the latest blow in an ongoing tug-of-war.

Jordan Sims, an Ole Miss alum who played offensive line from 2014-2018, joined Golding’s staff in 2022 after stints at Utah State and South Carolina. As spring 2014’s Most Improved Offensive Player, he helped power record-breaking offenses.

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It includes 826 total yards against ULM. Sims follows head strength coach Nick Savage. Even Savage also defected to LSU. It creates a significant void in Golding’s conditioning unit.

Previously, when Lane Kiffin boarded that plane to Louisiana, he was also accompanied by eight prior staffers, like offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr., Joe Cox, and Dane Stevens. Amid this exodus, Pete Golding, together with players and coaches, is trying to copy Lane Kiffin’s playbook.

He countered with a seven-figure bid to flip Clemson commit Luke Ferrelli while guiding Ole Miss through playoff runs despite the chaos.