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Ole Miss is currently under investigation by the NCAA for tampering. This all stems from the NCAA transfer portal recruitment of Luke Ferrelli. Originally slotted to play at Clemson in 2026, Ferrelli opted for Ole Miss — much to the dismay of Dabo Swinney. But on the flip side, Pete Golding is quite happy to have the linebacker on his roster.
This topic did come up on Wednesday when Golding was speaking at SEC Media Days. He was asked a broader question about tampering, looking for his feelings on the subject.
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“I don’t get into feelings, to be honest with you,” Golding said. “We’ve got a compliance department, they get paid to do their job. They do a really good job. So, it’s our responsibility to recruit really good players, coach them extremely hard, get them ready to win football games. We’re going to continue to recruit really good players — that’s both in the high school market and in the portal market. We’ll continue to do it how we’ve done it.”
No matter who has been in charge at Ole Miss, the transfer portal has been the main focus during the offseason. Lane Kiffin was once dubbed the Portal King. The strategy worked over multiple years, helping the Rebels reach the College Football Playoff. Golding then reaped the benefits by guiding the team to a CFP semifinal.
The tradition has carried over with Golding in charge of the program on a full-time basis. And when looking for a linebacker, attention turned to Ferrelli. Committed to Clemson at the time (after spending the 2025 season at Cal), a change of heart suddenly came. Clemson has since alleged tampering against Ole Miss, leading to this investigation.
“I think a lot of things make headlines,” Golding recently said. “There’s a lot more people involved that everybody might not know. Everyone wants clarity. Enforcement about a lot of these things is a real problem. I’m not going to sit up here and say whatever we did or we didn’t do, was it right or was it wrong? But, you know, when you go through what we went through (with tampering), and what you’re seeing day-in and day-out, some things you feel like shouldn’t matter that they’re making a big deal about.
“It’s about the enforcement about it, that’s what everybody wants. What are the rules going to be in place, and are they going to be enforced? Up to this point, that hasn’t happened.”
