CLEMSON — Graham Neff said the NCAA was surprised when Clemson made the decision to report Ole Miss and head coach Pete Golding for tampering.

Neff, along with Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney, turned Ole Miss over to the NCAA, while giving them the evidence needed to hold the Rebels accountable for tampering with a player enrolled in school and no longer in the transfer portal.

That player, of course, was linebacker Luke Ferrelli, who was already attending classes and team activities at Clemson, and was not in the transfer portal when the Rebels started contacting him at the end of last week.

“The NCAA was surprised that a school was willing to come forward as directly and as transparently as we have,” Neff said this past Friday. “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.”

Neff continued and said Clemson is exploring other potential legal options related to Ferrelli being tampered. However, they did not want to go into detail at this point on what those options might be.

“This is a Clemson and Clemson Football specific issue,” Neff said. “My role here is to support all 21 of our programs and our head coaches and student-athletes. So, I would do the same here with any of our other 17 head coaches.

“But this is much bigger than our athletic department and our university. 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.”

The Clemson athletic director went on to say the system does not work without rules, and the enforceability of those rules.

“We want to elevate the experience we have had and the change for college football and college sports,” Neff said. “It is easy to point fingers. It is easy to lecture others about doing things the right way and playing by the rules and then move on to the next competitive pressure. There are a lot of those in college sports.

“But what is hard to do is to roll up your sleeves, acting ways that are consistent with your values and your ethics, so we are here today to add voice and perspective to that end.”