Dabo Swinney Responds to Report Lane Kiffin Leaked Ole Miss Tampering Info to Clemson HC

With Clemson and LSU set to face each other in Saturday's highly anticipated showdown, Dabo Swinney and Lane Kiffin will once again be under the spotlight.

And the Clemson coach pushed back at the notion his counterpart previously gave him intel to assist in the Tigers' turning in Ole Miss for tampering when it came to linebacker Luke Ferrelli.

Swinney told reporters Wednesday any suggestion Kiffin "egged him on" and provided such intel was false. "Lane Kiffin had nothing to do with that," he added. "Zero. … People can make up whatever stories they want."

In May, ESPN's David Hale and Mark Schlabach reported the NCAA opened an investigation into Ole Miss on the same day Swinney publicly accused Rebels head coach Pete Golding of tampering with Ferrelli.

"This is a whole other level of tampering," Swinney said on Jan. 23. "It's total hypocrisy. ... This is a really sad state of affairs. We have a broken system, and if there are no consequences for tampering, then we have no rules and we have no governance."

Golding replaced Kiffin as the Ole Miss head coach when the latter left for LSU before the Rebels' participated in last season's College Football Playoff.

With that as the backdrop, John Talty of CBS Sports shared an excerpt from his upcoming book Lane Being Lane: The Story of Lane Kiffin, College Football's Agent of Chaos that said Kiffin "passed along information … to help Swinney in his crusade against Golding and Ole Miss."

After Ole Miss linebacker T.J. Dottery transferred to LSU, the Rebels turned their attention to Ferrelli despite his decision to join Clemson. According to Talty, Ole Miss "offered him a significant raise over what he was expected to make at Clemson."

When Ferrelli decided to join the Rebels, Swinney went public with his tampering allegations. 

Talty wrote that "Clemson offensive line coach Matt Luke, the former Ole Miss head coach, called his alma mater to give it a heads-up on what Kiffin had helped convince Swinney to do."

However, Swinney was adamant Kiffin had nothing to do with the situation during his recent press conference.

He was also asked about the NCAA's investigation into Ole Miss and said, "No, I haven't heard anything. It was true, he was in school for a week, it did happen. Then he magically ended up at another place. It really doesn't frustrate me. I am just trying to win a game this weekend. That's it. Let everybody else worry about all that stuff."

Swinney and Clemson will face Kiffin and LSU on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET.