This past Friday, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney clearly brought out the receipts to his press conference regarding Ole Miss’s tampering – what he called “blatant” tampering and a “whole other level” of tampering.

Swinney attempted to provide clarity and context as to what happened with the Luke Ferrelli situation, giving a very descriptive and detailed timeline of events that transpired with the linebacker, who was not in the transfer portal and was enrolled at Clemson and attending classes and team activities when the Rebels made contact.

Ferrelli visited Clemson early on in the portal window, then quickly announced a commitment to the Tigers. The school officially announced his addition, and the rising redshirt sophomore was enrolled, attending classes and participating in team activities. Then, this past Thursday, Ferrelli was officially back in the transfer portal, and he announced a commitment to Ole Miss the same day.

Swinney and Clemson athletic director Graham Neff announced they turned Ole Miss head coach Pete Golding and the Rebels in to the NCAA for possible violations, and Swinney called what went down with Ferrelli “Tampering 301.”

“This is obviously a crazy time,” Swinney said. “We turned everything in to the NCAA. And I’m just going to say this. There’s tampering, and then there’s blatant tampering. Tampering 101 is when you’re talking to kids who aren’t in the portal. Tampering 201 is when you’ve already negotiated the deal when the kid’s not in the portal. Tampering 301 is when you’ve got a kid who’s gone in the portal, signed somewhere, moved there, gone to classes, and you’re texting them while they’re in class. That’s like a whole other level of tampering.”

There’s been plenty of reactions in the aftermath of Swinney’s tampering comments and allegations, and among those who’ve weighed in is three-time national title-winning head coach Urban Meyer.

 On The Triple Option podcast, Meyer said the Clemson-Ole Miss tampering case should be a one-week investigation if Dabo has receipts.

“If this is all true – and it sounds to me like Dabo has the goods right there — this should be not a three-year investigation, a two-year investigation. This should be a one-week investigation,” Meyer said. “You go on the campus [at] Ole Miss, you meet with the athletic director and the coach and say … ‘We have facts here, you can’t lie to the NCAA, and if you [do] you can’t coach.’ The investigation is then over. But then they’re going to hire Tom Mars, that [prominent] attorney, they’ll fight it, and I guess they’ll win. It really bothers me.

“I actually see people out there taking shots at Dabo. Think about that… They call him a whiner. Why is he whiny? … Where Dabo’s doing the right thing. Turn ‘em in. Absolutely turn ‘em in. If nothing happens, there’s no governance, there’s no rules, and it’ll be the most chaotic … which it already is. So, I’m disappointed.”

The NCAA responded Friday night to Clemson’s allegations, with NCAA Vice President of enforcement Jon Duncan saying in a statement that the NCAA “will investigate any credible allegations of tampering and expect full cooperation from all involved as is required by NCAA rules. … We will not comment further on any ongoing investigation.”

Meyer continued to rip the NCAA, as there’s skepticism about how much of a difference Swinney’s comments will ultimately make in the grand scheme of things and whether the NCAA will actually issue any significant punishment to Ole Miss. The NCAA’s track record with investigations don’t suggest that will happen.

“There are no rules,” Meyer said. “The NCAA is gone. It’s over. … Law and order without consequences is not law and order. It’s chaos. … It actually disgusts me. It makes me sick. Because I’ll hear people say ‘everybody does it’ – no, everybody doesn’t do it.”

–Photo courtesy of Dale Zanine-Imagn Images