Swinney: Lane Kiffin Had ‘Zero’ to Do With Clemson’s Tampering Complaint vs. Ole Miss

Dabo Swinney strongly pushed back Wednesday evening on a CBS Sports report connecting LSU coach Lane Kiffin to Clemson's handling of the Luke Ferrelli tampering situation.

CBS Sports' John Talty reported Wednesday that Kiffin provided Swinney with information surrounding Ferrelli's departure from Clemson and encouraged the Clemson coach to publicly call out Ole Miss. The report, adapted from Talty's upcoming book Lane Being Lane, cited multiple sources in reporting that Kiffin passed information along to Swinney.

Swinney, asked about the report following Clemson's Wednesday practice, said he had only learned of it moments earlier and emphatically denied that Kiffin played any role in Clemson reporting the situation to the NCAA.

"Lane Kiffin had nothing to do with, I mean, zero to do with me turning in the tampering situation here at Clemson," Swinney said.

Swinney acknowledged that Kiffin contacted him after Ferrelli's departure and said other coaches reached out as well. But he drew a distinction between those conversations and the information Clemson ultimately provided to the NCAA about Pete Golding’s Rebels.

"I ain't operating in no hearsay," Swinney said. "I don't care what anybody says. I don't care how anybody runs their program. They can run their program however they want to run their program.

"I got one issue. If you tamper with my program, I'm going to turn you in."

According to CBS Sports, Kiffin was looking for a measure of revenge against his former program at Ole Miss and encouraged Swinney to go public after Ferrelli left Clemson for the Rebels. The report also says Clemson maintains that the information it supplied to the NCAA came from firsthand sources and that the school's decision to go public was its own.

Swinney's response Wednesday was consistent with that position.

"I was turning that in the moment he left," Swinney said. "And, again, nothing against the kid, just the system and the process of what happened."

Ferrelli entered the transfer portal from Cal, joined the Clemson program, began working out, and attended classes before leaving for Ole Miss, prompting Swinney to publicly detail Clemson's timeline of events in January and announce that the school had reported the matter.

The NCAA investigation has not been resolved, according to CBS Sports. Swinney said earlier this week that he had received no recent update on the case.

Wednesday, he reiterated that Clemson's complaint was based on what happened inside his own program rather than information supplied by Kiffin.

"I didn't share nothing with anybody other than this is what happened at my school and gave the exact timeline, and that's it," Swinney said. "Lane Kiffin didn't have anything to do with that."

The timing adds another wrinkle with Clemson headed to Baton Rouge this weekend to face Kiffin and LSU. 

"I turned them in because I had a kid tampered with, was in class a week, and then left," Swinney said. "So it's all in the NCAA's hands from there."