Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney certainly raised the attention on transfer portal tampering when he called out Ole Miss and head coach Pete Golding on Jan. 23 for what Swinney called “blatant” tampering with portal signee Luke Ferrelli.

So, will the NCAA do anything about it?

ESPN analyst Greg McElroy weighed in on that question during a recent episode of his Always College Football show and gave his biggest takeaways from what went down with the Swinney tampering claims vs. Ole Miss and Golding.

“It’s not that Dabo called out Ole Miss. It’s not that Ole Miss was allegedly doing something that was not necessarily on the up-and-up. It’s, what can be done about it?” McElroy said. “Normally, I’d say the NCAA will issue a sternly worded letter in four and a half years after they do their investigation, and it’s done. Nobody cares. This feels a little bit different.”

During his press conference on Jan. 23, Swinney revealed Clemson had turned Ole Miss into the NCAA for tampering with Ferrelli. Swinney claims that Golding texted Ferrelli directly while he was sitting in class after having already enrolled at Clemson. Ferrelli had already signed his financial aid agreement and was taking part in football activities before ultimately re-entering the portal and committing to the Rebels on Jan. 22.

The NCAA responded very quickly 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.”

“Now the NCAA has responded already. That almost never happens. … For them to say we’re investigating credible allegations — that’s lightning speed this quickly,” McElroy said. “I don’t know the qualifications of what makes it a Level I violation, Level II violation. … But I do think if this did happen — if you’re texting an enrolled student, someone who is technically a Clemson Tiger sitting in a Clemson classroom – that takes poaching to a whole new level.”

Swinney clearly brought out the receipts to his press conference regarding Ole Miss’s tampering as he attempted to provide clarity and context as to what happened with the Ferrelli situation, giving a very descriptive and detailed timeline of events that transpired with the linebacker.

McElroy described the alleged tampering with Ferrelli as “borderline tortious interference.”

“This feels like something that we’re not necessarily used to,” McElroy said. “Does it happen all the time? I guarantee it does. … Dabo Swinney might be old school. You might not necessarily like his stance on the portal. You might not agree with how he runs his program. You may think he’s stubborn or what it might be. But if he’s got receipts to claim that this went down, and he’s going to hand the NCAA the easiest layup they’ve ever had — this, eventually, is how you curb this behavior.”

In his press conference, Swinney called it a “whole other level” of tampering and said what Ole Miss did was “Tampering 301,” meaning an extreme level.

Swinney also had a message to all the head coaches across the country, challenging fellow coaches to turn in tamperers and calling for his coaching colleagues to “be an example to young coaches in this profession and be people of integrity, or just shut your mouth and don’t complain again.”

McElroy believes more coaches should do exactly as Swinney did in calling out tampering.

“There needs to be a kangaroo court for coaches,” McElroy said. “We need more coaches actually calling out schools specifically with documents that actually line-by-line detail what went down. … Everyone talks about how bad it is, and no one is willing or able to hold anybody accountable. If you can now go through this, we’ll be really curious to see where this goes. Very, very curious, because if something actually comes of this, it might curb behavior. If coaches continue to bring light to what’s going on with recruitment and tampering, maybe it will stop. Maybe it will at least slow down.

“Because if nothing happens here, if nothing happens to Ole Miss and these allegations turn out to be untrue, then the party’s over. There are no rules at this point. So ‘Tampering 301’ is officially in session — we will see who passes the final exam.”

–Photo courtesy of Kirby Lee-Imagn Images