Colorado State Coach Believes Ole Miss, Power 4 Programs Guilty of Tampering

Colorado State head coach Jay Norvell recently spoke about supposed offers his players have received to enter the transfer portal, mentioning schools like Ole Miss.

Colorado State football coach Jay Norvell speaks before the Grit run on Saturday, April 20, 2024. The run is a charity race to raise money for cystic fibrosis research. / Kevin Lytle/The Coloradoan / USA TODAY

The Ole Miss Rebels are relevant in the national landscape of college football, but who would have expected they would be mentioned at the Mountain West Conference Media Days?

Jay Norvell, head coach of the Colorado State Rams, spoke in depth about what he believes to be a large issue in modern college football: tampering with rosters. He spoke about two players in particular who told him that they had received offers from larger programs to enter the transfer portal: quarterback Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi and wide receiver Tory Horton.

Norvell's biggest comment came on the subject of a supposed $600,000 offer from Kansas State to land the quarterback, but he would also mention Ole Miss and Texas A&M in regards to Horton.

“I’ve had every team in America try to take Tory Horton from us," Norvell said, according to College Football Network. "From Texas A&M to Ole Miss, they’ve all been on him.”

Whether or not the Aggies and Rebels actually attempted to lure Horton is not certain, but it would be naive to think that tampering doesn't happen in this transfer portal era of college football. Ole Miss has certainly landed a ton of talent via the portal this offseason, helping bolster its roster in hopes of a College Football Playoff run in 2024.

Still, Ole Miss' wide receiver room is rather stacked, so not landing Horton would not have been a huge blow to the program. The Rebels return key playmakers like Tre Harris and Jordan Watkins, underclassmen Ayden Williams and Cayden Lee, and added Juice Wells out of the portal.

If there's one glaring strength for Ole Miss offensively, it's at the receiver position. Perhaps the Rebels did reach out to Horton, but the truth may never be revealed.