OXFORD, Miss. -- Ed Orgeron insists Mississippi did nothing
wrong by asking a Tulane assistant coach about the possibility of
players transferring to Ole Miss if the Green Wave's football team
was dissolved in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath.
"I just know that we did the right thing," the Rebels coach
said Monday. "We called an assistant coach and said that we heard
that football may not be going on at Tulane, and we would like to
go through the proper channels when the time comes. That's all that
happened."
The dispute began earlier this month when Tulane coach Chris
Scelfo accused an SEC school of tampering and said an assistant at
the school contacted several players about transferring.
The program in question was confirmed later to be Ole Miss by
athletic director Pete Boone. Green Wave assistant Greg Davis Jr.
said the Rebels' head coach contacted him about luring some of
Tulane's players to Oxford if the school eliminated the team.
Tulane spent the season on the road after they evacuated New
Orleans in August and their home stadium, the Louisiana Superdome,
was damaged by Katrina. The Green Wave's 11-games-in-11-stadiums
tour concluded last week with a loss at Southern Mississippi.
"In the worst natural disaster in the history of the United
States, you've got to stoop pretty low to do that. You're lower
than dirt," Scelfo said last month in a CBS Sportsline.com story.
"I'm not going to tolerate that. There's people in our business
that don't belong in our business."
Scelfo has not commented on the subject since then, and neither
he nor Davis could be reached Monday for comment. A Tulane
spokeswoman did not immediately return a telephone message left by
The Associated Press.
The Southeastern Conference exonerated Ole Miss, saying an
investigation showed the school did not violate league or NCAA
rules concerning tampering or impermissible recruiting contact.
"The truth came out, and we felt that everything we did was
ethical," Orgeron said.
Boone said too much was being made of the situation because the
talks took place out in the open.
"We did not do one thing that was unethical. Not one," Boone
said. "This is one of those things that you have to work through.
As long as you know that every card you're playing is on top of the
table, then you smile and go on about your business and let the
chips fall, because you know they're going to fall right at the end
of the day."