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David Hale
During an hour-long press conference on Friday, CLEMSON Coach Dabo Swinney explodes ole miss Coach Pete Golding reportedly directly flirted with a Clemson player, lamented the current landscape of college football that encourages such actions, and offered changes he believes are needed to provide guardrails to the current system.
Swinney criticized Goulding for reportedly making outright, repeated offers to lure the linebacker. luke farrelly Ferrelli had already signed a contract and enrolled in classes at Clemson, after which he described it in the transfer portal as a “straight case of tampering” and urged his coaching colleagues to “be an example for young coaches in this profession and be honest people or keep your mouth shut and not complain.”
Swinney referred to the portal scenario in some instances as “flat-out extortion” and cited Ferrelli’s case as a “clear” example of how ugly things have become in a system that seemingly has no consequences for bad actors.
“This is a completely different level of tampering,” Swinney said of Golding and Ole Miss’s communications with Farrelly. “This is complete hypocrisy… It’s really a sad situation. We have a broken system, and if there are no consequences for tampering, we have no rules and we have no governance.”
Swinney’s comments follow several other high-profile conflicts over player movement in the transfer portal, including Washington quarterback demand williams jr., who attempted to back out of a contract with the Huskies before returning to the program, and Duke quarterback Darian MensahWho is it being sued by the school For breach of contract because he attempted a transfer after saying he would stay with the Blue Devils.
Ferrelli, one of the nation’s top freshman guards at Cal in 2025, entered the portal in January. Swinney detailed the two-week process, after which Ferrelli visited Ole Miss and Clemson, agreed to a revenue-sharing contract with the Tigers, rented an apartment, bought a car, enrolled in and attending classes, and began offseason workouts there.
Swinney said that on January 14 – more than a week after Ferrelli began classes at Clemson – Ferrelli’s agent contacted Clemson general manager Jordan Sorrells to alert him that “Ole Miss was going after Ferrelli hard”. At Swinney’s request, Sorrells reached out to Ole Miss GM Austin Thomas and requested that the school cease further communication with Ferrelli.
According to Swinney, Thomas assured Sorrells that he did not support tampering but that Golding “does what he does.”
Swinney then detailed a series of alleged communications from Golding to Farrelly that began during an 8 a.m. class. Swinney said Ferrelli received a text message that read, “I know you signed but what is the buyout?” And then came the picture of the $1 million contract offer and the phone call from the quarterback trinidad chamblis And former quarterback Jackson Dart is trying to get Ferrelli back into the portal.
According to Swinney, Ferrelli told Clemson he had no interest in leaving, but Ferrelli’s agent, Ryan Williams, refused to provide copies of those text messages unless, Swinney said, the Tigers added a second year to Ferrelli’s contract, which included a $1 million extension. Clemson declined that offer.
Swinney and athletic director Graham Neff then detailed a four-hour roller-coaster ride on January 15 that began with Ferrelli arriving on campus assuring coaches that he planned to stay. He reached the school’s compliance office by late afternoon and requested to enter the portal with plans to visit Ole Miss.
On January 16, Clemson officially submitted a complaint to the NCAA alleging “blatant” and “direct” tampering, and Neff said the school would consider additional legal action if no resolution was reached.
“I’m not trying to fire anyone, but when is enough enough?” Swinney said. “If we have rules, and molestation is a rule, there should be consequences. And it would be a shame on us as adults if we don’t hold each other accountable.”
Golding has been the head coach at Ole Miss for less than two months, when former coach Lane Kiffin left to take the head position at LSU prior to the Rebels’ playoff run. Following Kiffin’s departure, Golding had to deal with multiple schools attempting to lure players to Ole Miss, as well as face a busy month of preparation for playoff games while several of his assistant coaches worked at Ole Miss and LSU.
Swinney said, when faced with the tampering allegations, one of Ole Miss’s responses was that other schools had also tampered with their players.
“One thing I know,” Swinney said, “is that two wrongs don’t make a right.”
Swinney said NCAA officials were “surprised” by Clemson’s transparency in its complaint, telling him that many schools have expressed disappointment or made less obvious allegations of tampering, but have rarely been willing to file an official complaint.
It is unclear whether the NCAA could or would enforce any punishment if Ole Miss was found to have tampered with Ferrelli. Although tampering is against NCAA rules, it is widely considered a major issue that often involves communication between third parties to avoid strict definitions of rule-breaking.
“It’s not about one linebacker at Clemson,” Swinney said. “I don’t want anyone on our team that doesn’t want to be here. But this is about the next kid and the next kid and the message being sent that blatant tampering is being allowed without any consequences. This is not about our program. This is about college football.”
Swinney detailed in a Friday media session a series of suggestions he wants to implement to address the most pressing issues in college football, including moving the portal window to the spring, re-imagining spring football as a series of OTAs with times set by each program and limiting free transfers to one per player until the head coach leaves or the player graduates. He also suggested that collective bargaining would be a better option than the current situation – a marked departure from a coach who had long argued against making student-athletes employees.
Swinney also called for an improved revenue-sharing system in which a percentage of money earned would be withheld and distributed when players graduate or turn 25 as a means of preventing long-term financial problems.
“If we don’t take action about these current transfer rules, we will see in five or six years a large group of players without degrees who will have spent their short-term money,” Swinney said. “We’re going to have a bunch of bad 30-year-old players. … I believe college football is set up to reward the 2 percent who have a chance to make it to the NFL. As adults, we should know better and do better for the 98 percent of college football players who will not play in the NFL. I think we have a responsibility to make sure we educate, equip and graduate the young men who are entrusted to all of us in college football. Is.”
