Clemson's Dabo Swinney Hurls Serious Accusation at Pete Golding, Ole Miss

CLEMSON – Dabo Swinney has come out and said the quiet part out loud. After Luke Ferrelli transferred from the Clemson Tigers to the Ole Miss Rebels, questions began to swirl about the timeline. After the Clemson head coach addressed the media on Friday, it became very clear how he felt about the matter.

Swinney broke it all down, with a few jabs at Pete Golding included for good measure.

“There’s tampering, and then there’s blatant tampering,” Swinney explained during a nearly 20-minute answer. “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 other level of tampering.”

Ferrelli originally committed to the Tigers out of the transfer portal from Cal on January 6th. Swinney said that the goal was to take a single linebacker, and they settled on the former Golden Bear.

That is, until the linebacker re-entered the portal on Thursday and committed to Ole Miss.

The Clemson coach alleges that Golding’s staff and Ole Miss players directly communicated with Ferrelli, with a reported offer of $1 million. Swinney then says the offer was elevated to $2 million, with Ole Miss general manager Austin Thomas and director of player personnel Jai Choudhary being identified as the points of contact for the Rebels.

Swinney says that Golding texted Ferrelli, saying, “I know you’re signed, but what is your buyout?”

He also alleged that current and former players like Trinidad Chambliss and Jaxson Dart took part in reaching out to Ferrelli.

Swinney says that the program has reached out to the NCAA with allegations of tampering and is exploring potential legal action.

“I am not going to let someone flat out tamper with my program,” Swinney said. “If you tamper with my players, I’m going to turn you in. There’s a lot more I can say, but I’m going to let the NCAA do its job.”

Ferrelli, at 6-foot-3, 230 pounds, recorded 91 tackles, one quarterback sack, and one interception as a redshirt-freshman last season for Cal. He was named the ACC Defensive Rookie of the Year for his standout season. He was rated as a three-star prospect (85) and the 64th overall linebacker in this transfer portal class.

According to 24/7 Sports, he is already enrolled at Ole Miss.

If Clemson follows through with a formal NCAA complaint, the case could become one of the first major tests of tampering enforcement in the NIL era, and a direct public challenge to how college football’s transfer market currently operates.