After Lane Kiffin left Ole Miss for LSU, there were concerns that the LSU assistants on loan to the Rebels would try to lure players from Oxford to Baton Rouge. Now, Ole Miss has been accused of doing some untoward enticing of its own.
On Friday, Clemson coach Dabo Swinney accused new Ole Miss coach Pete Golding of tampering with linebacker Luke Ferrelli. Specifically, Swinney said Golding made repeated contact with Ferrelli, after he signed an NIL contract and enrolled in classes at Clemson.
“This is a whole other level of tampering,” Swinney said, via David Hale of ESPN.com. “It’s total hypocrisy. . . . This is a really sad state of affairs. We have a broken system, and if there are no consequences for tampering, then we have no rules and we have no governance.”
Clemson eventually complained to the NCAA about the alleged tampering, and Clemson has not ruled out potential legal action.
“I’m not trying to get anybody fired, but when is enough enough?” Swinney said. “If we have rules, and tampering is a rule, then there should be a consequence for that. And shame on the adults if we’re not going to hold each other accountable.”
The entire dynamic flows from the wreckage of the various longstanding NCAA rules that violated federal antitrust laws. Players now get paid, which has sparked a Wild West vibe. Swinney said Ole Miss defended its actions by claiming that others have done the same thing to Ole Miss.
The individual schools have recourse. If a player has a binding contract to play at one school and another school induces him to breach it, there’s potential civil liability for tortious interference.
Still, the better outcome would be a global solution that creates clear rules that are enforced by the NCAA. To get there, college football needs an antitrust exemption from Congress or a nationwide union that would create an inherent antitrust exemption, like the one the NFL enjoys.
Again, the schools don’t enjoy the concept of dealing with a union. They want the antitrust exemption without having to deal with collective bargaining. They want to have clear, enforceable rights to the players, while the players have limited (if any) rights against intense practices and endless offseason “voluntary” conditioning drills.
Swinney mentioned the possibility of collective bargaining on Friday. More coaches will come around, as it becomes more clear that there’s insufficient political will in the current climate to hand college football a license that plenty of other industries would relish — the power of different businesses to come together and create rules that restrict pay and limit the freedom of the workers.
