Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian absolutely roasts Ole Miss football

The chaos surrounding college football’s transfer portal and NIL landscape continues to frustrate coaches across the country, and Texas coach Steve Sarkisian became the latest big name to speak out after Clemson’s highly publicized situation involving Luke Ferrelli.

Ferrelli originally joined Clemson after transferring from Cal and was already attending classes and participating in team activities before abruptly flipping to Ole Miss near the end of the portal window. Clemson coach Dabo Swinney later accused Ole Miss defensive coordinator Pete Golding of tampering, saying Clemson submitted evidence to the NCAA showing Golding contacted Ferrelli while he was enrolled with the Tigers.

Months later, Swinney says Clemson still hasn’t heard anything meaningful from the NCAA regarding the investigation.

Sarkisian recently addressed the broader issue while speaking with USA Today Sports, making it clear he believes there are almost no real consequences for programs operating outside the rules.

“At Texas, we will only take 50% of a player’s academic credit hours,” Sarkisian said. “You may be a semester from graduating, but you’re going all the way back to 50% if you play here and want a degree. But at Ole Miss, they can take you. All you have to do is take basket weaving, and you can get an Ole Miss degree.”

Sarkisian also compared college football’s current structure to the NFL, where tampering penalties are much more severe and consistently enforced.

“There’s a reason in the NFL, when you get caught tampering, you get drilled. You lose draft picks,” Sarkisian said. “You don’t practice the right way, you lose practice days, coaches get fined. There are a lot of things in place to protect their rules and guardrails. Right now in college football, there’s no fear. People do whatever they want.”

The Texas coach also questioned how far the sport has drifted from its academic foundation amid the explosion of NIL money and transfer movement.

“It’s like we’ve forgotten about academics, yet less than 5% of these guys will play in the NFL,” Sarkisian said.

The Ferrelli situation became one of the more controversial portal stories of the offseason because of how public Clemson was with its accusations. Swinney openly called the alleged tampering “blatant” and expressed frustration that nothing appears to have happened after Clemson reported the situation.

With more coaches now publicly criticizing the current system, pressure continues to build on the NCAA to address tampering concerns before more programs lose trust in the process.

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This article originally appeared on Clemson Wire: Steve Sarkisian calls out Ole Miss, ‘basket weaving’ academics