Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney accused Mississippi State head coach Pete Golding of tampering with transfer player Luke Ferrelli and said Friday he had forwarded the evidence to the NCAA.
“If you tamper with my players, I’m going to turn you in. It’s that simple,” Swinney said at a news conference. “I have no intention of firing anyone, but there must be accountability and consequences for this behavior and complete disregard for the rules.
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“If this happened in the NFL, which is a league with real rules, they would be fined, they would take draft picks, they would hit the cap, etc.,” Swinney continued. “This is a very bad example for a young coach in this profession… To me this situation is like having an affair on your honeymoon.”
Ferrelli, a former linebacker at Cal State, entered the transfer portal on Jan. 2 and committed to Clemson four days later. Swinney said Ferrelli then signed up, started taking classes and began attending meetings and workouts.
Ferrelli re-entered the portal on Jan. 22 and committed to Ole Miss.
“You can’t sign with the Browns and practice for a week and then the Dolphins call you and say we’re going to give you more money and you say, ‘Bye, kids,’ and then go play for the Dolphins. That’s not the real world,” Swinney said.
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University of Mississippi athletic officials did not respond to Swinney’s allegations when contacted by The Associated Press on Friday.
Jon Duncan, NCAA vice president of enforcement, said in a statement that the association “will investigate any credible allegations of tampering and expects the full cooperation of all involved as required by NCAA rules.”
Swinney claimed that Golding stayed in contact with Farrelly after he signed to Clemson, even texting, “I know you signed, but what’s your buyout?”
When Swinney found out about it, he said he initially told Clemson general manager Jordan Sorrells that he wanted to give Golding “some favors” because the Rebels’ coach had just been promoted after Lane Kiffin left for LSU over Thanksgiving weekend.
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Swinney asked Sorrells to tell University of Mississippi officials, “We know what happened and if he doesn’t stop communicating, I will report him. I really thought that was the end of it, but that’s not the case.”
Swinney said Ferrelli’s agent confirmed that Golding continued to have contact with the player, so Clemson officials requested copies of the text messages.
“The agent said if we added a second year of $1 million to the deal we already had with Luke, they would be happy to give us whatever we needed to report Mississippi,” Swinney said. “Jordan appropriately said, ‘No, we’re not going to do that.'”
Clemson athletic director Graham Neff said the university’s main reason for going public with the allegations was to prompt changes in the college football schedule and related rules (or lack thereof) that have led to upheaval throughout the sport.
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“The NCAA is surprised that schools are willing to come forward as directly and as transparently as we have,” Neff said. “We need to think hard about how we got here, but also how to get out of this.”
Neff added that Clemson is exploring its legal options.
“This has nothing to do with Clemson’s linebackers,” Swinney added. “I don’t want anyone on our team who doesn’t want to be here.
“This is about the next child and about the message that is sent if this kind of blatant tampering is allowed to happen without any consequences.”
Swinney also called the January transfer portal window “stupid,” saying it “can be an outright rip-off in some cases” because players and schools are making big decisions “in such a short period of time, right in the middle of people trying to make bowl games, playoff games, etc.”
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Swinney warned that if the system isn’t reformed, there will be unintended consequences for players who transfer to multiple schools while pursuing short-term financial expenditures — especially if they don’t make it to the NFL.
“We’re going to have some screwed-up 30-year-olds … who don’t have a degree, they’ve run out of money, they can’t play football anymore and they’re not connected to anything,” Swinney said.
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