Steve Spurrier has a message for Dabo Swinney, Clemson about tampering

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Steve Spurrier has a message for Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney.

The “Head Ball Coach” was asked about by a reporter on Monday about Swinney publicly calling out Ole Miss coach Pete Golding and Rebels general manager Austin Thomas for tampering with linebacker Luke Ferrelli, who enrolled at Clemson and was in team meetings before joining Mississippi.

Spurrier’s message?

“I thought by now somebody would have told Dabo: ‘Dabo, there ain’t no rules anymore,'” Spurrier said with a laugh in response to a question from WYFF-TV’s Marc Whiteman.

Spurrier added:

“There are (rules) still on the books I guess back there about, ‘You can’t do it after this date or that date.’ Gosh, (in) basketball, they got pros coming back to play in college there, so I don’t know. I don’t know if they’re ever going to enforce any rules now or not.”

“But I think Dabo has learned now that he’s got to start paying his players just like everybody else is, or you’ll get left behind… You can complain, but I don’t know how good it’s going to do.”

“There’s no rules. Somebody tell Dabo there’s no rules now,” Spurrier repeated.

Spurrier is the latest prominent figure to weigh in on the tampering saga, which Swinney highlighted in rigorous detail at a news conference on Jan. 23.

During the news conference, Swinney said that he had turned Ole Miss into the NCAA for “blatant tampering.”

“I’ve always just stayed in my lane and handled my business, and I’ve stayed focused on Clemson,” Swinney said at the time. “But I’m not going to let someone just flat out tamper with my program. If you tamper with my players, I’m going to turn you in.”

National reaction to Clemson, Dabo Swinney turning in Ole Miss

Several prominent college football voices have come to Swinney’s defense, including Fox Sports top game analyst Joel Klatt.

“Dabo is absolutely right,” Klatt said recently. “He’s right, and yet we need more guys like Dabo to step forward and say: ‘govern us.'”

“The reality of the situation is, something has to put a stop to this,” added ESPN’s Tom Luginbill. “Because this is the problem. It’s not name, image and likeness. It’s not the transfer portal. It’s tampering.”

Former coach Urban Meyer, whose Ohio State teams met Clemson in the College Football Playoff and the Orange Bowl, also came to Swinney’s defense. Meyer said Swinney did the right thing by turning in Ole Miss.

“I actually see people out there taking shots at Dabo,” Meyer said in late January. “They call him a whiner. Why is he whiny? … Dabo’s doing the right thing. Turn ’em in. Absolutely, turn ’em in. If nothing happens, there’s no governance, there’s no rules, and it’ll be the most chaotic… which it already is.”

South Carolina coach Shane Beamer has also sided with Swinney.

“I don’t blame him,” Beamer said of Swinney. “If that happened the way it’s been described, that’s a big deal. That’s not a gray area. That’s wrong.

“If you’re going to have rules, then you have to enforce them. And if you don’t enforce them, then what’s the point? If someone is found guilty of doing that, I think the penalty should be severe.”

Spurrier was 5-2 in seven meetings against Swinney as South Carolina’s head coach before resigning in 2015. He will be inducted into the South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame in May.

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This article originally appeared on Clemson Wire: Steve Spurrier has message for Dabo Swinney. Clemson about tampering

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