Dabo Swinney spoke for over eighteen minutes today on the Luke Ferrelli situation, calling out Ole Miss and head coach Pete Golding for blatant tampering.
Rough Transcript:
We had a very public situation with our portal signee that signed with Clemson, moved to Clemson, went to class, trained, and now he's no longer at Clemson. So I know y'all have heard a lot about that. My objective today is to just provide a little bit of clarity, a little bit of context as to what happened with this situation.
First of all, we did everything right. Kid goes in the portal, we reach out, he's interested, comes and visits Clemson, says this is where he wants to go, and we sign him. He moves to Clemson, rents an apartment, buys a car, goes to class for a week, trains, team meeting, position meetings, writes out his goals for the semester. Full-blown Clemson student. We’re rolling.
And then all of a sudden, not here anymore. So how did we get here?
Sunday, January the 4th, Jordan Sorrells had his first conversation with Ryan Williams, the agent. On Monday, January the 5th, at 8:30, Luke Ferrelli showed up here at Clemson with his dad for his official visit.
They came over to my house a little after nine that night. I had a chance to meet with them for the very first time. It was just to get to know each other right there at the beginning, and we had a good conversation.
My first question was, they had just come in off an Ole Miss visit, I said, “How was the visit?” And his dad said, “Not good. It was a mess. It was unorganized. It was chaos. The building was a mess. Nobody knew what was going on.”
And I said, “Well, look forward to y’all seeing Clemson tomorrow. We’re going to be organized and structured.” So we just had some chit chat that night.
The next day, Tuesday, January 6th, he had his visit on campus at 2:30. Ryan Williams, the agent, Luke, the player, and his dad verbally accepted the terms of the offer and made a commitment to Clemson. Everybody high-fived it. Everybody’s excited. We got our linebacker. We were going to take one linebacker. We got our linebacker.
We canceled all the visits of all the other guys that we were going to schedule to come in throughout the rest of the week, because we’re done. We’re taking one. We’ve made our commitment.
At 3:15, Luke and his dad left town to go back to California.
Wednesday, January the 7th, at 11:00 a.m., Luke signed his financial aid agreement with Clemson.
Sunday, January the 11th, he moved to Clemson. Again, rents an apartment, buys a car, goes to class for a week. He’s in training for a week. Team meeting, position meeting, all that.
Wednesday, January the 14th, at 9:49 p.m., the agent, Ryan Williams, calls Jordan Sorrells. During that conversation, Ryan conveys that Ole Miss has been coming hard after Luke.
Jordan said, “Are you talking about the same Luke that’s enrolled at Clemson, that’s been in class, that’s moved here, that signed with Clemson?” And the agent assured him yes, the same one. But he also assured Jordan that Luke had no intention of leaving Clemson, but just thought y’all should be in the loop and check up on him tomorrow.
Thursday, January the 15th, at 11:45 a.m., Jordan came to me and told me about the conversation he had the night before with the agent. I told Sorrells, I directed Sorrells, “You reach out to their GM.” I asked who their GM was. He said his name is Austin Thomas. I said, “You reach out to their GM. This guy has been a head coach for four weeks. I’m going to give him some grace. Let him know that we know what’s going on. And if he doesn’t cease communication, I’m going to turn him in.”
At 12:10, Jordan communicated to Austin Thomas via text because he was unable to reach him by phone. A few minutes later, at 12:14, they connected on the phone. Jordan reiterated our stance. The GM assured Jordan that he had communicated to the agent that he wanted no part of this and that his relationship with Jordan was more important to him than Luke Ferrelli, but that Pete Golding just does what he does.
At 1:30, Sorrells met with Luke face-to-face in his office. Luke communicated to Jordan and to Ben Boulware that Pete Golding texted him Wednesday morning while he was in his 8:00 a.m. class. The text said, “I know you’re signed. What’s the buyout?”
Luke said that Coach Golding also texted him a picture of a one-million-dollar contract. Luke also mentioned that Coach Golding had Trinidad Chambliss call him from his phone and that Coach Golding was there continuing to talk on his phone, pushing him to reenter the transfer portal. Luke also said that Jackson Dart had reached out and called him.
Luke again assured Jordan that he had no intention of leaving.
Friday morning, January the 16th, the last day of the portal, we had a staff meeting. At 11:20, Luke called Ben Boulware and told him that Mississippi had reached out again and had doubled their offer. Luke told Ben, “We’re good.”
Ben told Luke to come to the office and see Sorrells and Coach Sweeney and let them know everything was okay. Ben then texted Jordan Sorrells to let him know Ole Miss had raised its offer to two years, two million.
At 11:57, Sorrells spoke with the agent, Ryan Williams, again. The agent confirmed that Pete Golding had continued communication and raised the offer again. Jordan asked for the text messages. The agent was hesitant because he didn’t want to burn bridges with Ole Miss. The agent said if we added a second year at a million dollars to the deal, they would gladly give us whatever we needed to turn Ole Miss in. Jordan, of course, said no.
The agent also said Ole Miss assistant director of player personnel, Jai Choudhary, was pushing to set up a Zoom call.
At 12:30, Sorrells met Luke in the parking lot outside the football facility. Luke said he was coming to assure him and Coach Sweeney he wasn’t going anywhere. I was not in the building. Jordan called me. I tried calling Luke. No answer.
At 4:14, Jordan Sorrells came to see me. Compliance had called him and said Luke was in their office requesting to re-enter the transfer portal. At 4:19, Jordan called the agent again. The agent texted back that he was flying. Jordan texted, “Luke just requested to go in the portal. What is going on?” The agent replied, “Oh, bleep. Let me find out.”
At 4:40, Jordan and Coach Tom Allen went to Luke’s apartment. Luke said immediately, “I’m going to Ole Miss.” They talked, and when they left, Luke said he needed to clear his head.
At 5:39, Jordan spoke again with Austin Thomas and told him we were pursuing all options regarding tampering.
At 7:20, after a call with Tom Allen and Ben Boulware, Luke affirmed his plan to enter the transfer portal. He then called me and told me the same thing.
Once I got word at 4:15, I immediately called our AD, Graham Neff. I also called Commissioner Phillips, who called the SEC commissioner and others. We turned everything in to the NCAA.
There’s tampering, and then there’s blatant tampering. Tampering 101 is talking to kids not in the portal. Tampering 201 is negotiating deals. Tampering 301 is when a kid has signed, moved, gone to class, and you’re texting him while he’s in class.
This is total hypocrisy. They’re accusing others publicly of tampering while doing it themselves. This is a broken system. If there are no consequences, we have no governance.
This is not about a linebacker at Clemson. I feel sorry for the young man. I blame the adults. This is about the next kid. This is about protecting our program and college football.
If you tamper with my players, I’m going to turn you in. If that’s not tampering, then I need clarification. But that’s what I understand tampering to be.
This shouldn’t be a three-year investigation. It might take three days. Just get the phones.
I’m not out to get anybody fired. I just want accountability. This is a terrible example for young coaches.
This is like having an affair on your honeymoon. I know this happens elsewhere because coaches have called me with their stories. If you don’t step up, don’t complain.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. Right is right, even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong, even if everybody does it.
My win-loss record is set. This is about the profession. This is chaos. You can’t sign a guy, go to class, practice, and then someone just calls him away.
That’s what happened. That’s where we are. And with that, I’m going to pass it off to our AD, Graham Neff.
