Why Dabo Swinney said calling out Ole Miss, Pete Golding over tampering had to be public
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Dabo Swinney said he knew tampering was going on in college football for a long time, but it felt different when it impacted his own team.
Clemson football lost linebacker Luke Ferrelli, who transferred to Clemson on Jan. 7 then re-entered the portal on Jan. 16 to transfer to Ole Miss on Jan. 22.
This led to Swinney going on a lengthy rant on Jan. 23, calling out Ole Miss and Rebels coach Pete Golding for what the Clemson football coach said was tampering with Ferrelli.
Swinney said Golding was contacting Ferrelli despite him transferring to Clemson, being enrolled in classes and participating in team workouts. He said he submitted the information to the NCAA.
“There’s tampering, and then there’s blatant tampering,” Swinney said. “Tampering 101 is when you’re talking to kids who aren’t in the portal. Tampering 201 is when you’ve already negotiated the deal with the kids not in the portal.
“Tampering 301 is when you got a kid who’s going in the portal, signed somewhere, moved there, going to classes and you’re texting them while they’re in class. That’s like a whole other level of tampering.”
College football coaches are vocal about tampering in the transfer portal and high-school recruiting, but they rarely call out schools or coaches like Swinney did.
Swinney, who is coming off his second-worst coaching season at Clemson after going 7-6 in 2025, acknowledged some would think he was coming off as bitter for losing Ferrelli, the ACC’s defensive rookie of the year.
However, Swinney said he called out Ole Miss to protect Clemson from future acts of tampering and for the betterment of the sport.
“It’s about the message that is being sent if this blatant tampering is allowed to happen without any consequences,” Swinney said. “This is about protecting our program. This is about college football.”
Swinney said he refuses to make deals with players before the portal opens. He also challenged coaches who reached out to him about their tampering stories to call it out like him to continue to bring awareness to the issue that will prompt the NCAA to do something about it.
“You either step up and you be an example to young coaches in this profession and be people of integrity or just shut your mouth and don’t complain again,” Swinney said.
What is tampering?
Tampering in college athletics is when teams contact players who are on other teams. That is against the rules.
In many cases, teams will do that to try to get players into the transfer portal. However, accusations are rarely publicized.
Teams are not allowed to tamper with athletes, according to NCAA bylaw 13.1.1.4. Here’s what the full rule says:
“An athletics staff member or other representative of the institution’s athletics interests shall not communicate or make contact with the student-athlete of another NCAA Division I institution, or any individual associated with the student-athlete (e.g., family member, scholastic or nonscholastic coach, advisor), directly or indirectly, without first obtaining authorization through the notification of transfer process. Before making contact, directly or indirectly, with a student-athlete of an NCAA Division II or Division III institution, or an NAIA four-year collegiate institution, an athletics staff member or other representative of the institution’s athletics interests shall comply with the rule of the applicable division or the NAIA rule for making contact with a student-athlete.”
Derrian Carter covers Clemson athletics for The Greenville News and the USA TODAY Network. Email him at DCarter@usatodayco.com and follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @DerrianCarter00
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Dabo Swinney explains why he called out Ole Miss for tampering
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