The emergence of the transfer portal in college sports, combined with the NIL era, has made everything extremely chaotic. One of the biggest issues is that tampering continues across the country, and there is no way the NCAA can enforce it everywhere at once. Now, the Ole Miss football program is under fire after Dabo Swinney produced receipts showing Pete Golding tampering with his Clemson players.
On the most recent episode of “The Triple Option,” Urban Meyer took a hard-line stance against the allegations that Dabo Swinney accused Pete Golding of tampering. Meyer said that if it were up to him and he were with the NCAA, and Golding continued to lie, he does not think he could coach because of it.
Meyer's full response was, “If this is all true, and it sounds to me like Dabo has the goods right there. This should not be a three-year investigation, a two-year investigation. This should be a one-week investigation. You go to the campus. I think it’s Ole Miss. You meet with the athletic director and the coach. And say, ‘If you lie, we’re going to ask you questions. If you lie, we have facts here.’ You can’t lie to the NCAA. If you can’t, then you can’t coach.”
All of this stems from Dabo Swinney taking to the podium on Friday afternoon, where he accused Golding of “blatant tampering” after inking Luke Ferrelli to a deal once Ferrelli decided to re-enter the transfer portal last week and flip on the Tigers.
Swinney walked reporters through the situation in which Ferrelli initially departed the Cal Bears for the NCAA Transfer Portal this offseason, then signed with Clemson.
But after a short stint at Clemson this spring semester, Ferrelli elected to re-enter the portal and signed with Ole Miss.
“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’ve got a kid who’s going in the portal to sign somewhere, move there, going to classes, and you’re texting them while they’re in class. That’s like a whole ‘nother level of tampering.”
The NCAA also released a statement that it will investigate all tampering allegations and will not comment further on an ongoing investigation.
