College football’s long-standing recruiting ethics debate is raging once again as Ole Miss is the target of new tampering accusations. While the Rebels dominate the headlines, Alex Golesh, the Auburn HC, framed the controversy as part of a much larger problem that has been brewing for years.

“I think it’s all relative,” Golesh said, pointing out how every level of college football has dealt with roster poaching long before the Ole Miss controversy came into the spotlight. “We used to talk about at the Group of Five level, like, man, people are going to come get our kids. Well, look at who’s in front of the podium right now complaining about it. The level’s irrelevant. It truly is all relative to where you are.”

Golesh added that tampering is nothing new, but the transfer portal has supercharged it. “It’s been going on for a really long time. This portal era, I think, amplified it in every imaginable way.”

With Clemson claiming that LB Luke Ferrelli was contacted while attending class and practicing with the Tigers, Golesh called for structure, saying, “There eventually needs to be guardrails on this thing. I think we all want guardrails. I think we all want to know the rules in which you can operate in. The truth is, right now, there aren’t any. So you operate ethically with what you feel like is right.”

Golesh was blunt on reaching out to players already on another roster, saying, “Is it right to call a kid that’s on somebody else’s roster to go get them? It’s not,” he said, echoing Swinney’s outrage after Pete Golding texted Ferrelli during class with a photo of a $1 million contract.

As the Rebels’ pursuit reportedly escalated to a two-year, $2 million offer, Golesh warned that shortcuts tend to surface when it matters most. “I think, in a lot of ways, what goes around comes around. In the fall, you got to go line up and play. And I’m a strong believer in the football gods will find you at some point. And generally, they’ll find you at the end of a game, or they’ll find you on fourth and one.”

Still, Golesh admitted the immense pressure that drives decisions behind the scenes. “The pressure to win is great. And people feel it in different ways. And so I’m not here to judge anybody else’s decisions on how they operate,” he said, before circling back to the same unresolved issue. “But you would love to have some guardrails within the system.”

And nowhere is that pressure more visible right now than in Clemson.

Dabo Swinney’s worst fear comes true

There’s also a layer of irony that hasn’t gone unnoticed. “It’s also the irony that it’s Dabo and this is somebody who’s fought against this and didn’t want to embrace this, and now he does… See, you wanted me to get into this smut. Like, here we are,” FSU legend Danny Kanell said on the January 26 episode of the Cover 3 Podcast.

He’s not incorrect either. Swinney has spent years resisting the transfer portal and pushing for high school recruiting, culture, and patience over quick fixes. He is now at the center of one of the most intense portal disputes. Kanell’s remark contains a hint of irony since Dabo is reminding everyone that he didn’t want college football to become this way in the first place.

For years, Clemson did things differently. Swinney stuck to his plan, which included recruiting high school students and developing them, while other programs jumped right into the portal. During the first seven years of the portal, the Tigers added only six players from the transfer portal.

Top Stories

Travis Kelce Confirms Sporting Decision Away From Chiefs After TE’s Major Career News

Bryson DeChambeau Visits PGA of America as LIV Golf’s Future Looks Bleak

Josh Allen Officially at Risk of Losing 21 Players as Bills Coach Quits Hours After Joe Brady Announcement

Blue Jays Told to Thwart Dodgers’ Plan After Scott Boras Pushes 24-Year-Old Star to Reject Reds’ Historic Deal

Bryson DeChambeau Announces Career Move After $500M Demand Put LIV Golf in Worrying Spot

Kyle Larson Quietly Acknowledges His Biggest Rival as NASCAR’s New Format Puts His Title Defense on Edge

But everything finally forced his hand last season. Clemson added eleven new players in the 2026 cycle, showing that even the sport’s most stubborn believers are being forced into this new era. And yet, here Swinney was threatening NCAA penalties over something he had previously opposed.