Pete Golding still hasn’t said Luke Ferrelli’s name in public. Six months after Dabo Swinney accused him of tampering, the Ole Miss coach used SEC Media Days to defend how his program recruits without ever directly addressing the case hanging over it.

“I don’t get into feelings, to be honest with you. We have a compliance department,” Pete Golding said when asked about the ongoing NCAA allegations involving Ferrelli’s transfer.

“They get paid to do their job, and they do a really good job. So it’s our responsibility to recruit really good players, right? Coach them extremely hard and get them ready to win football games. We’re going to continue to recruit really good players, both in the high school market and in the portal market, and we’ll continue to do it.”

Pressed on what he’d change about college football’s lack of tampering guidelines, Golding didn’t back down. He argued that recruiting has never been especially clean, in high school football or anywhere else. Singling out one program now misses the point.

The case Golding wouldn’t name started in January, when Swinney accused him of “blatant” tampering with linebacker Luke Ferrelli. Ferrelli, the 2025 ACC Defensive Rookie of the Year at Cal, had transferred to Clemson, enrolled in classes and started team workouts there before Ole Miss got involved.

Swinney said Golding texted Ferrelli during an 8 a.m. class to ask about his buyout, then sent a photo of a $1 million offer. Ferrelli entered the portal again days later and signed with the Rebels.

The NCAA opened a formal investigation the same day Swinney went public, and it hasn’t gone away since.

How is the case going so far?

The NCAA has requested forensic imaging of Golding’s phone along with five other Ole Miss staffers, plus Ferrelli’s own device, covering records from December 2025 through January 2026. That request dates back to January, and the investigation remains in its early stages, with Swinney saying as recently as last week that he still has no update.

Golding hasn’t stayed quiet through all of it. At SEC Spring Meetings in May, he pushed back on the criticism directly and suggested he’d be willing to expose more than 15 other programs for tampering of their own if Ole Miss gets hit with penalties.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey waded into the debate too this week, without naming Ole Miss specifically. He said the modern recruiting environment, full of NIL representatives and agents making calls on players’ behalf, puts every program in a “glass house,” and that coaches should be careful about throwing stones.

Swinney sees it differently. He’s continued pushing for Congress to step in and set clearer national rules, arguing the NCAA can’t police tampering on its own.

Ferrelli remains on Ole Miss’s roster with no resolution in sight. He and the Rebels open the season Sept. 6 against Louisville, still waiting to see what, if anything, the NCAA decides.