Stein Says Coaches Must Do All They Can to Follow Rules

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, who has never minded controversy, recently went public with allegations that the Ole Miss coaching staff tampered with a Clemson transfer who was already on campus taking classes and offered him enough money that he is now at Ole Miss.

Kentucky coach Will Stein is still pursuing talent for his first Kentucky roster but he joined “OutKick’s Hot Mic” Monday and did not avoid answering when asked about how coaches might operate in the grey area when it comes to recruiting because rules are so vague and seem to keep changing.

“It’s crazy right? And there’s a lot of grey (areas), mostly grey,” Stein said “You have to do the best job as a coach of operating within the confines of the rules. You have to. The rules get skewed, they change almost weekly, daily sometimes, yearly.

‘How do you keep up with this? You have to have really smart people around you, and you have to do the right thing. Do what you’re supposed to do, when you’re supposed to do it, and you’re gonna be fine.”

Stein did not deny that players were “shopping” before entering the transfer portal.

“It’s not just coaches. Agents are shopping their players before the season. How do you deal with that as a person at another program when you receive calls from agents, and they give you an entire list of players who are looking to get into the portal?” Stein asked.

Changing schools each year is a way of life now in college football or at least it seems that way. Some players want playing time. Some just want more money — and often get it.

It does not help that players apparently have more than one agent to make situations even messier.

“I go to our players and ask, ‘which one is your guy?’. A lot of times it was all three at the same time,” Stein said. “I’m like, ‘What? Like what are you doing?’

“You put these kids in these predicaments where they are being lured either way. They don’t know how to say no, because a lot of them are really nice, sweet kids that wanna do right by people and they don’t have the family or structure to help them in the right direction.”