Jeff Lebby: Teams already tampering with Mississippi State players

The 2024 college football regular season is coming to a close at month’s end, and programs are gearing up to mine the transfer portal for players. Even if that means tampering, apparently.

In response to a question about tampering in the age of the transfer portal and the NIL, Mississippi State head coach Jeff Lebby shared on the SEC coaches teleconference that his players are already being tampered with, and recruited to leave for other programs. And as he explained it, Lebby spoke about it as if it is a reality of life in college football until something changes.

“Well yeah, it’s going on,” Lebby said about tampering. “There’re guys on football team right now that are going through that. Again, until that is managed and policed at the highest level, there’s nothing that’s going to stop people from doing it.”

Lebby left the matter at that, not naming which players other programs might be trying to poach or which teams and coaches are trying to do the poaching, allegedly, and breaking rules in the process. 

Lebby also didn’t have a prescription for what could specifically fix this problem, but he seems keen for something to be done to curtail players on his team being recruited to transfer before the season is even over.

Lebby was bullish on the SEC cracking down on another issue this year

Lebby is a fan of the new rule from the SEC that punishes teams for their players faking injuries. Conference commissioner Greg Sankey released a memo on the revealing the teams will be fined up to $100,000 and the head coach will face a suspension on the third offense.

It’s received mixed reaction from coaches around the league such as Lane Kiffin and Clark Lea. However, Lebby is on the side that believes it will ultimately be a good thing for college football.

“I’m all in favor,” he said. “Love it. It’s come up a ton as we’ve been in the middle of some games. So I love that that’s where it’s going.”

Lebby’s stance on the matter makes sense and teams likely try to employ the fake injury strategy against his up-tempo style offense. Injuries force timeouts on the field that allow the defense a chance to catch its breath and prevent such offenses from gaining too much momentum.

It’s unclear exactly what factors the SEC will use to determine whether a player is faking an injury. It doesn’t seem to be something that can easily be proven one way or the other.

Sankey also said the SEC would send any video of obvious feigned injuries to the National Coordinator. However, the league office won’t necessarily look at every play that could bring about some questions.