Virginia Tech landed a huge retention win on the defensive line with 6’3, 283-pound DT Kemari Copeland. The redshirt junior is back for his senior year, having started all 12 games last season. Copeland earned Third-Team All-ACC honors, and now, he’s stepping up as the anchor inside Kody Huisman and Kevin Gilliam Jr. out the door under new head coach James Franklin. Temptations come with the territory for a player of Kemari Copeland’s talent. But like Clemson’s Dabo Swinney calling out tampering, Copeland kept it real and stayed put.

In a video posted to X, Kemari Copeland shared a text message he received mid-season from an unnamed program. 

“Good afternoon. I have a minimum (censored) on the table for you in the fall portal,” the message read. “Not sure if you have even thought about the transfer portal, but would love to connect with you and your folks about the opportunity this week if you have some availability.”

Kemari Copeland mentioned in a video that the ongoing public conversation around tampering, specifically Dabo Swinney calling out Ole Miss, pushed him to speak. 

“Tampering in college football is a real thing, and I’m gonna talk about it,” he said. “So basically what tampering is, is when coaches or people illegally recruit you, like when they’re not supposed to.”

Tampering is when coaches or their intermediaries contact players during the season, when they’re enrolled, practicing, and competing. It is offers that are made before a player even enters the portal, and conversations happen quietly until someone finally says them out loud.

Kemari Copeland’s experience came during chaos. After Virginia Tech’s fourth game, a coach was fired. By Week 8, he said one school kept reaching out. Copeland brushed it off at first, since he was trying to play winning football. Then came Louisville. While playing well, he noticed something odd in the crowd. A person wearing the logo of the same program contacted him, sitting close, watching intently. 

“I could be tripping,” he admitted. “But there’s no way a fan would wear that logo to a Virginia Tech game and sit right in the front, like it’s just crazy.” 

Perhaps his performance intrigued them, because two days later, the text arrived. The uncomfortable truth is that this isn’t a rare occurrence. 

“This is an example of like tampering,” he said. “This happens to all the good players and stuff, as this happens to everyone.”

And the numbers back up why he’d be a target. Kemari Copeland will enter his third season in Blacksburg in 2026, after stops at Army and Iowa Western CC and two productive years anchoring Virginia Tech’s interior. According to Pro Football Focus, he graded out at 77.0 overall in 2025, the fourth-highest on the team. He ranked third defensively behind Huisman and James Jennette. His run defense grade (76.6) sat among Virginia Tech’s best, while his missed tackle rate was just 7.3%, and he posted a 73.0 pass-rush grade. He finished with 48 tackles, 11 solo, and 4.5 sacks.

Three of those sacks came in one night against Cal. On the very first snap, Kemari Copeland dropped QB Jaron Keawe-Sagapolutele. By the end, he’d logged the most sacks by a Hokies DT since his own position coach, J.C. Price, did it 30 years earlier. Production like that gets noticed and, apparently, hunted. That reality brings us directly to the big picture of Dabo Swinney’s reality. 

Dabo Swinney, Ole Miss, and a system under fire

During a media conference on January 23, Dabo Swinney accused Ole Miss of repeated, unauthorized contact with LB Luke Ferrelli. The head coach laid out a detailed timeline, stressing that the player was enrolled at Clemson, attending class, and participating in team activities when the alleged contact occurred. Despite his denials about leaving, Ferrelli abruptly re-entered the portal and committed to Pete Golding and the reported $2M offer that the Rebels laid out for him on the last day of the portal window, i.e., January 16. 

“This is a whole other level of tampering,” Dabo Swinney said. “It’s total hypocrisy… We have a broken system, and if there are no consequences for tampering, then we have no rules, and we have no governance.”

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Clemson reported the situation to the NCAA, and the league confirmed it has opened an investigation. 

“The NCAA will investigate any credible allegations of tampering and expect full cooperation from all involved as is required by NCAA rules,” VP of enforcement Jon Duncan said. “We will not comment further on any ongoing investigation.”

Dabo Swinney was clear that this wasn’t about one player. 

“It’s about the next kid and the next kid and the message that’s being sent with just blatant tampering being allowed to happen without consequences,” he said. 

Kemari Copeland didn’t name a school nor ask for punishment. But by putting his experience out there, he gave Dabo Swinney’s words context. Tampering is becoming a pattern. Copeland didn’t just do Virginia Tech a favor by coming back. He also pulled the curtain back on a sport pretending it doesn’t see what’s right in front of it.