Dabo Swinney emphatically denies report Lane Kiffin provided Clemson information about Ole Miss tampering
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It’s been hard to miss Lane Kiffin‘s name in the headlines this offseason, but it appears he at least isn’t guilty of one shady activity.
To set the scene, California rising sophomore linebacker Luke Ferrelli opted to transfer to Clemson during the recent cycle, only to change course and join Pete Golding‘s Ole Miss side.
Swinney initially came out and elaborated at length about how he believed the Rebels had tampered in order to secure Ferrelli’s commitment, but nothing came of he and Clemson’s claims.
And just recently, rumors swirled that first-year LSU head coach Lane Kiffin–who of course left aforementioned Ole Miss late last season–was the one who tipped off the Tigers.
With that only adding to the drama surrounding Kiffin, Swinney did take a moment to shut down any claims that the much-maligned coach was involved in that past saga.
“Lane Kiffin had nothing to do with me turning in the tampering situation at Clemson,” Swinney said. “After the kid left, he [Kiffin] certainly reached out…and honestly, I had a lot of coaches reach out with a lot of hearsay.”
Swinney went on to emphasize that despite hearing plenty of rumors from other sources, he refused to focus on any of that and instead simply keyed in on handling the Ferrelli situation.
“I don’t care how anyone runs their program. I just have one issue: If you tamper with my program, I will turn you in,” Swinney said. “I was turning that in the moment he left. Not anything against the kid, just the system and the process.”
In the end, Swinney exclaimed that Kiffin had nothing to do with what occurred on multiple occasions, calling the notion as a whole false.
“People can make up whatever stories they want,” Swinney said. “All the other stuff, all this hearsay…I could care less.”
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Parker is currently the sports editor for Gulf Coast Media in Foley, Alabama. He's a graduate from Mizzou who has experience covering the Tiger football and basketball beats for SB Nation, and he's worked for a variety of sports news outlets in the past.
