CLEMSON — Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney has to be pleased with the news that came out Monday night from the NCAA.

The Division I Board of Directors has charged the NCAA Enforcement Staff to “pursue significant penalties” for tampering violations, according to a memo the NCAA sent to its member schools on Monday. Yahoo.com Senior College Football Writer, Ross Dellenger, first reported the story.

The question now becomes — will the NCAA actually follow through?

Clemson Football surely hopes so.

Last month, Swinney publicly accused Ole Miss and head football coach Pete Golding of blatant tampering with former Clemson linebacker Luke Ferrelli, who was already enrolled at Clemson and was not in the transfer portal at the time the alleged tampering took place.

Swinney brought out the receipts in his press conference regarding Ole Miss’s tampering – what he called a “whole other level” of tampering. In the same press conference, Clemson Athletic Director Graham Neff said Clemson had turned over evidence to the NCAA that proved Ole Miss was tampering with the student-athlete.

Clemson had a very public transfer portal situation with Ferrelli, who played at Cal last season. Ferrelli visited Clemson early on in the portal window, then quickly announced a commitment to the Tigers.

Clemson officially announced Ferrelli’s addition, and the rising redshirt sophomore was enrolled, attending classes and participating in team activities. Then, news broke of his impending departure.

“The NCAA was surprised that a school was willing to come forward as directly and as transparently as we have,” Neff said on Jan. 23. “Normally, there is a lot of complaint in the media, hearsay amongst the industry, etc. Very little actually gets reported. That is coming from the NCAA directly.

“We are very eager to support them in the process and in the determination of the rules and go from there.”

The NCAA is working with an “infractions modernization task force” to expedite the process of investigating potential violators for tampering. The VP of Enforcement, Jon Duncan, said this is to “better serve the new era of Division I.”

Clemson will wait to see exactly how fast the NCAA will punish Ole Miss for its transgressions.

“But this is much bigger than our athletic department and our university,” Neff said. “A lot of my colleagues across the country are starting to say that we are at a critical juncture of college athletics and have started to come forward more and more with a voice and perspective and I wanted to really encourage and extend that here today.”