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Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney raised eyebrows across college football when he publicly accused Ole Miss and first-year head coach Pete Golding of “blatant tampering” during their recruitment of former transfer linebacker Luke Ferrelli in late January. The NCAA has since opened an ongoing investigation into those tampering allegations.
Ferrelli, a former Cal linebacker who committed to Clemson on Jan. 6 and signed financial agreement documents the next day, allegedly received impermissible contact from Golding and other Rebels representatives while he was already attending classes at Clemson in mid-January. After several back-and-forth conversations between Ole Miss and his agent, Ferrelli re-entered the transfer portal on Jan. 22 and immediately committed to the Rebels on the final day of college football’s two-week portal window.
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When asked about the complicated saga between Clemson and Ole Miss, as well as tampering at large, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey cautioned against head coaches “throwing stones,” with the implication that most competitive college football programs have likely engaged in similar tactics.
“We all live in a glass house,” Sankey told Sports Talk Mississippi on Tuesday at SEC Media Days. “… And I respect that frustrations boil over from time to time, but the environment that we’re in (with player) representatives, NIL representatives, agents making phone calls, we’re in a very different environment, which puts us into those glass houses. So, we all have to be careful about throwing stones – including me.”
Sankey went onto explain that SEC representatives, including himself, met with NCAA president Charlie Baker the day after the Big Ten filed a formal request to suspend current tampering investigations, a request the organization promptly denied. Coming out of that meeting, the SEC hoped the NCAA would both acknowledge and better adjust to the New World Order with regard to tampering issues.
“You’re not just going to stop this stuff,” Sankey continued. “The NCAA model is you get a committee together and they say we need stronger penalties. I don’t think that’s true. I think we need to define what it is we want, which fundamentally is: we don’t want coaches calling kids at a different school saying, ‘Jump in the portal.’ Or setting up deals with representatives so that you go in the portal at 6 pm on a Friday at 8 am you have a new place and a scholarship. That means tampering has taken place.
“Those things should be defined. And then when issues occur, I don’t think stronger penalties are the answer right now. I think (it should be) more timely oversight and accountability,” Sankey added. “And it may be a lesser penalty, it may be just a warning … what is perceived as a slap on the wrist. But do something in an orderly fashion, in a timely fashion. And then if it happens again involving the same individuals, that penalty should be elevated.”
Sankey also pointed the finger at the transferring student-athlete and their representatives: “There has to be accountability there too. It can’t all just be on the institution, and I don’t think we’re there yet, which is a bit frustrating.”
Earlier this month, the NCAA Division I Board of Directors proposed a legal tampering period prior to the start of college football’s transfer portal window, according to Yahoo! Sports‘ Ross Dellenger. This new “tampering framework,” which could be voted on in August, would allow programs to legally reach out to “contactable” student-athletes and their representatives ahead of portal’s formal opening in early January.
The NCAA D1 Board also cleaned up tampering language that would effectively make all investigations beginning on more of a presumption of guilt that puts the onus on programs to prove their innocence, as well as establishing that student-athletes can be held individually accountable and have an obligation to fully cooperate with the NCAA enforcement staff, according to Dellenger.
