CHARLOTTE — Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney has never been one to lay low on a topic, especially when he has a personal connection to it.
It’s no secret Swinney was hot under the collar after linebacker Luke Ferrelli, who was already enrolled in school and taking classes at Clemson, suddenly re-entered his name into the transfer portal just before it closed this past January and later headed to Ole Miss.
During a press conference in January, Swinney accused Ole Miss head coach Pete Golding of personally contacting Ferrelli, who had transferred to Clemson from Cal several weeks before.
Swinney even had receipts, which he laid out in a well-documented timeline of events. So, when Clemson’s longtime head coach was asked if there should be more done when it comes to tampering, he was quick to answer.
“We are probably going to need some congressional help from that,” Swinney said last week at the ACC Football Kickoff event at the Hilton Charlotte Uptown. “There has to be some type of rule in place. There needs to be consequences or just say ‘the heck with it’ and do not worry about it and let it be the wild, wild west.”
According to a report from ESPN, the NCAA opened an investigation of the Ole Miss football program the same day (Jan. 23) Swinney accused Golding of tampering with Ferrelli.
Ferrelli’s departure left Clemson in a bind, because they had already terminated their discussions with any other linebacker like Ferrelli, who was already in the portal and interested in coming to Clemson. Those players moved on, and like Ferrelli was at Clemson, they were already enrolled at another school.
Swinney was not going to do to those schools what Golding and Ole Miss did to Clemson.
“There are these other leagues (like the NFL) that have rules. There are consequences – suspensions, fines, firings or whatever. There are contracts and things like that,” Swinney said. “There are lots of things. To this point, it is rampant because in college sports nobody really fears or worries about those consequences.”
If the Protect the College Sports Act is passed by Congress, that could all change. The PCSA has a provision already in place that will call for teams tampering with another school’s players to be severely punished.
It was reported last Thursday that the PCSA could get passed through the Senate as early as next week.
Swinney was later asked if he heard from the NCAA on the Ferrelli tampering case. He reported he has not heard anything from the NCAA, but he does not expect to.
“I did my part,” he said. “The NCAA does not give us an update, so I have no idea.”