Fresno State wideout called his coaches after alleged tampering contact. What did he say?

Fresno State coach Matt Entz said wideout Josiah Freeman made two phone calls after another school reached out to him last month, making impermissible contact and allegedly tampering with the Bulldogs’ leading receiver a year ago.

One call was to Entz. The other call was to DelVon Hardaway, the Bulldogs’ receivers coach. It was just a heads up. Freeman at that point already was enrolled in school, in his apartment. He had signed a revenue sharing deal with Fresno State, a Name Image and Likeness licensing agreement.

“I think he wanted to make sure we knew, ‘This isn’t my doing. This is someone else,’ ” Entz said, after a Wednesday press conference about the Bulldogs’ recruiting class.

Freeman, who in early January was granted an additional year of eligibility by the NCAA, said one other thing to Entz and Hardaway when he made those calls.

“He said he was good,” Entz said. “We kind of just crossed our fingers and trusted him that he was good and to this day he’s still good. He’s excited to be here. He’s a tremendous talent, and knows where he needs to continue to get better. He’s probably going to have NFL interest this year, and I’m excited for him.”

Freeman has not been available for interviews with the media. But NCAA bylaws prohibit coaches or staff from contacting student-athletes who are enrolled at other schools and have not entered the transfer portal. The impermissible contact reportedly came from Ole Miss, which was called out last month by Clemson coach Dabo Swinney in a press conference for allegedly tampering with a Tigers’ player.

Linebacker Luke Ferrelli had transferred to Clemson from Cal, enrolled in classes and attended team workouts and meetings. But Ferrelli jumped back into the portal before it closed in January, left Clemson and signed with Ole Miss. Swinney, in that Jan. 23 press conference, said Ferrelli told Clemson staff that Ole Miss coach Pete Golding had sent him a text message while he was in class and said, ‘I know you’re signed, what’s the buyout?” Swinney also said Golding texted Ferrelli a photo of a $1 million contract.

“There’s tampering, and then there’s blatant tampering,” Swinney said, at his press conference. “Tampering 101 is when you’re talking to kids who aren’t in the portal. Tampering 201 is when you’ve already negotiated the deal when the kid is not in the portal. Tampering 301 is when you’ve got a kid who’s gone in the portal, signed somewhere, moved there, gone to classes, and you’re still texting them while they’re in class.”

The matter is under investigation by the NCAA.

“We’ve kind of just moved on from it, but we know it’s happening,” Entz said of the alleged incident with Freeman. “He’s not the first one. He’s probably not the only one. There are probably a handful of guys that sit in this room that we don’t know about. But at least we can be proactive and try to educate our players the best we can.

“You’re naive if you don’t think it happens. It happens with staff. It happens with high school coaches, agents, trainers, other players. There are so many avenues to connect with players nowadays to see if there’s interest.”

Entz in his press conference also praised Freeman, who will be one of the most dynamic offensive players in a rebuilt Pac-12 Conference. Last season, he caught 52 passes for 642 yards and six touchdowns. Fresno State does not disclose financial terms of its licensing deals with student-athletes due to privacy concerns, but it isn’t going to match up well with a Power Four conference school with much deeper pockets.

“It speaks a lot about him,” Entz said. “He found a place that works for him. He found people that care about him. We always talk about in our program that every player needs three things. They need to belong to a community. They need to know that people care, and they need to know that there’s a process for them to get better.

“That’s what we try to provide inside our football environment here. I think you see in Josiah and a lot of his teammates believe that they have those things here, and he can get wherever he wants to.”

This story was originally published February 5, 2026 at 1:38 PM with the headline "Fresno State wideout called his coaches after alleged tampering contact. What did he say?."