If you want to see what full-blown panic looks like when the heat is on, just watch Ole Miss head coach Pete Golding squirm at the SEC spring meetings on Wednesday.
With the NCAA breathing down his neck for blatantly poaching former Clemson linebacker Luke Ferrelli, Golding didn't even bother with a simple denial. Instead, he put on a clinic in finger-pointing, moaning that 'everybody's doing it,' crying foul about a double standard, and then threatening to blow the whistle on more than 15 other programs if Ole Miss gets punished. Talk about desperation.
The Defensive Meltdown: "What Are We Doing?"
Instead of even trying to clear his name, Golding went straight to downplaying how serious it is to yank a student right out of a Clemson classroom.
“I’m not going to sit up here and say whatever we did or we didn’t do, was it right or was it wrong?” Golding said, via On3’s Pete Nakos. “But, you know, when you go through what we went through, and what you’re seeing day-in and day-out, some things you feel like shouldn’t matter that they’re making a big deal about.”
Golding wasted no time turning his fire on former Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin and the LSU Tigers, griping about a so-called double standard after multi-year Rebel starter T.J. Dottery bolted for Baton Rouge right after Ole Miss got bounced from the Playoff by Miami.
“Not comparing [Ferrelli] to a guy who’s been a [multi-year] starter somewhere that wasn’t in the portal that’s at a new school now after going to a semifinal — like what are we doing?” Golding ranted, via ESPN. “There’s an enforcement of [Ferrelli], who just took an [official visit to Ole Miss], but there’s not an enforcement of [Dottery] who’s … been here for three years, and he’s been tampered with the entire time? What are we doing?”
The Madman Threat: Mutiny in College Football
But the craziest part of Golding's meltdown wasn't even on camera. According to On3's Pete Nakos, Golding has flat-out told folks at Ole Miss that if the NCAA drops the hammer on the Rebels, he's ready to pull the whole sport into the gutter with him.
- Golding has made it crystal clear to the NCAA that he's more than willing to take down his rivals if he goes down himself.
- Sources say Golding is bragging that he's got enough dirt to expose more than 15 other schools for tampering.
A Quick Reminder of the Receipts
Golding's real problem is that Dabo Swinney didn't just talk about tampering back on January 23. He handed the NCAA a rock-solid paper trail.
Swinney's receipts showed Golding was texting Ferrelli right in the middle of class on Clemson's campus, after the kid had already signed his financial aid and suited up for team activities. Golding didn't even try to hide it, asking what it would take to get him to Oxford just hours before the portal closed.
The NCAA took it so seriously they launched a formal investigation into Ole Miss the same day Dabo went public. Now they're already digging through Golding's phone and his staff's, and this 'everybody's doing it' excuse just screams that the walls are closing in.
Let the rival coaches squirm and point fingers all they want. The truth is coming out, and it's not Clemson's staff sweating over what the investigators will find.
Add us as a preferred source on Google