Mark Schlabach
When No. 6 Ole Miss takes the field Saturday against No. 11 Tulane in a College Football Playoff first-round game, the Rebels will be led by first-time head coach Pete Golding, whose only activity on X since January 2023 has been dropping a shark emoji every so often.
At least the 41-year-old former defensive coordinator is predictable.
That wasn’t always the case with Lane Kiffin, the former Ole Miss coach who abruptly left the Rebels at the end of the regular season to take over SEC rival LSU. Kiffin seems to spend as much time on social media as he does residing in opposing defensive coordinators’ heads because of his unpredictable playcalling.
That isn’t the only difference between the former colleagues turned rivals.
“I’m not changing who I am,” Golding said during his first session with reporters after being named Kiffin’s replacement. “I ain’t changing what the hell I wear. I’m [not] going to yoga … I ain’t doing any of that s—. I am who I am.”
The once-shaggy-haired Golding did get a haircut after replacing Kiffin and has been more polished in news conferences, according to local reporters. But he’s still sporting a beard and visor and sometimes has tobacco in his lip. The former Delta State safety remains as competitive as ever as well.
“You don’t know me well, but I don’t care if I’m coaching football or playing my wife in tennis,” Golding said. “Like, I’m trying to whip your ass, all right?”
In the 19 days since taking over the Rebels, Golding has worked hard to convince his players that the postseason isn’t about him — or Kiffin. That didn’t always seem to be the case under Kiffin, especially not while he was not-so-quietly being courted simultaneously by Florida and LSU for weeks.
“I think this group is focused on the mission, not the man,” Golding said.
Still, as Ole Miss prepares to host what is being billed as the biggest sporting event in the state’s history at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, it’s going to be difficult to completely forget Kiffin, who guided the Rebels to the first 11-win regular season in school history.
The Rebels are still running Kiffin’s offense, which led the SEC with 498.1 yards per game and was third with 37.3 points.
Offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr., tight ends coach Joe Cox and receivers coach George McDonald boarded a private jet for Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on the day Kiffin left to join his staff at LSU. However, they’ve returned to Ole Miss to coach in the CFP.
Nearly all of the Rebels’ defensive staff remains intact and plans to stay with Golding in 2026; Kiffin’s brother, Chris, was the team’s linebackers coach and went with him to LSU.
Golding, a former defensive coordinator at UTSA and Alabama, welcomed Weis and the others back to finish the job they started — even if they’ll be coaching at one of the Rebels’ biggest rivals in 2026.
Golding compared the situation to splitting with a girlfriend, then reuniting with her. Yet even celebrity breakups aren’t as public and messy as Lane Kiffin’s departure from Ole Miss was.
“Obviously, like in any situation, you break up with your girlfriend and you get back, you’re kind of looking around and you’re looking at things that you probably didn’t look at before, and you’re probably noticing some things that were there before, right?” Golding said.
Kiffin had wanted to continue coaching the Rebels in the CFP even after he informed Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter on Nov. 29 that he was leaving for LSU. Carter and chancellor Glenn Boyce had made it clear to Kiffin that he wouldn’t be allowed to coach Ole Miss in the postseason if he accepted a job offer elsewhere.
Sources told ESPN that Kiffin warned his assistants that if they didn’t leave with him, they wouldn’t have jobs at LSU.
Still, Ole Miss officials wanted Cox, McDonald and Weis to return to give the Rebels their best chance at winning a CFP national championship.
“I think the big thing from our players, at any level — D-II, Division I, the NFL — they want to be in a room with guys that create value for them,” Golding said. “Getting you prepared to play really well, whether it’s individually, as a group or as a unit. When you get back to a routine, you are doing it with the same guy that got you to 11-1. Where he’s going to be in January really doesn’t matter.”
But that doesn’t mean the LSU-Ole Miss rivalry has cooled down. Kiffin took general manager Billy Glasscock to Baton Rouge, so Golding hired Austin Thomas, who was Brian Kelly’s general manager at LSU.
On Tuesday, sources confirmed to ESPN that Golding is also hiring LSU interim coach Frank Wilson as his running backs coach. Wilson, the so-called “King of New Orleans” for his ability to sign prospects from Louisiana’s most fertile recruiting area, worked at Ole Miss from 2005 to 2007. Wilson will coach LSU against Houston in the Dec. 27 Kinder’s Texas Bowl.
Golding has a potential opening on his staff because Ole Miss running backs coach Kevin Smith is expected to reunite with Kiffin.
Golding declined to address reports about Wilson on Wednesday. The school has announced that Golding hired former East Carolina offensive coordinator John David Baker and former Kentucky receivers coach L’Damian Washington.
On national signing day, the Tigers flipped three high school prospects who were previously committed to Ole Miss: tight end J.C. Anderson, receiver Corey Barber and center Ryan Miret.
There’s also a chance that Kiffin and his staff could try to lure quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, tailback Kewan Lacy and others to LSU through the transfer portal. Chambliss is still awaiting a decision from the NCAA on whether he’ll be granted another year of eligibility after playing in only two games at Division II Ferris State in 2022.
Ole Miss announced Thursday that linebacker Suntarine Perkins, defensive tackle Will Echoles, center Brycen Sanders and defensive back Antonio Kite have committed to returning in 2026.
It all makes Saturday at Ole Miss feel like the coaching version of “The Hunger Games,” but with mimosas, pimento-cheese sandwiches and bloody marys in the famous Grove. Or perhaps it’s more like a Christmas dinner of dysfunctional relatives, who will go back to cutting each other at the knees once the holidays are over.
But the unpredictable uncle who can’t stay off social media isn’t coming.
“It’s kind of good that we got this first-round playoff game,” Ole Miss offensive lineman Diego Pounds said. “With everything else going on, we just started to ignore the noise. Just stay locked in. I just feel like it’s good that it’s game week because everybody’s back on track.”
Golding insists every member of the Ole Miss coaching staff is determined to get the Rebels ready to play and get the most out of their first CFP appearance.
The winner of Saturday’s game advances to play No. 3 Georgia in the CFP Quarterfinal at the Allstate Sugar Bowl (8 p.m. ET, ESPN) on New Year’s Day in New Orleans, about 80 miles from the LSU campus in Baton Rouge.
“Any coach is questioning [what he’s doing next season],” Golding said. “Regardless if they are successful, right? A lot of people want them. Or they are not successful and are about to get their ass fired. There’s indecision for everybody, including every locker room.”
Ole Miss quarterbacks coach Joe Judge said it’s no different from when NFL assistants and coordinators are preparing to jump to different jobs while closing out a season with their current teams.
“I’ve been in a lot of playoff games with guys who are getting ready to take head coaching jobs or coordinator jobs after the season,” said Judge, who was head coach of the New York Giants in 2020-21. “I’ve coached a lot of players whose contracts were up at the end of that season. You look at everything in terms of it’s our duty as coaches to work together and help the players finish this season, and we’ll deal with all the business later.”
Judge, who spent 10 seasons in various roles with the New England Patriots, has been a good sounding board for Golding as he prepares to be the coach in charge for the first time. Judge has already signed an extension to return to Ole Miss in 2026.
“It’s really nice to be able to have a guy from a leadership standpoint that’s been in the role that I’m in right now, to be able to close the door and bring him in and ask his opinion and say, ‘Hey, how did you do this?'” Golding said. “Not that you’re always going to do it that way, but that you’ve got a realistic opinion of somebody that’s done it.”
One of the biggest changes for Golding on Saturday is that he’s moving from the coaching box upstairs down to the Ole Miss sideline. He’s still expected to call defensive plays, along with co-defensive coordinator/secondary coach Bryan Brown.
Golding called plays from the sideline in his five seasons as Alabama’s defensive coordinator from 2018 to 2022 and in his first season at Ole Miss in 2023.
“At the beginning he thought about it as an interim [coach], he may stay up,” Brown said. “I was like, ‘No, brother. You’ve got to come down. It’s your show now, right?'”
The Rebels overwhelmed the Green Wave in a 45-10 victory in Oxford on Sept. 20. Ole Miss piled up 548 yards of offense and 23 first downs. It was a breakout game for Chambliss, who threw for 307 yards with two touchdowns and ran for 112.
Tulane didn’t have star left tackle Derrick Graham available in that meeting, and quarterback Jake Retzlaff, who didn’t join the team until July, wasn’t yet comfortable with his receivers.
The Green Wave (11-2) defeated ACC champion Duke 34-17 earlier this season, and won eight of nine games after falling at Ole Miss. They beat North Texas 34-21 in the American Conference championship game.
“We know we’ve got our hands full,” Golding said. “They always play extremely hard on defense. We know this is not a normal [AAC] team. They’re a very talented team, they’re very well coached and they’re going to be excited to play.”
It might be Jon Sumrall’s final game as Tulane’s coach. Sumrall took the Florida job after Kiffin turned it down. He asked to coach the Green Wave through the CFP, and the Tulane administration allowed him to do it.
With all that’s at stake, few first-time head coaches have faced more pressure to win their debut game than Golding.
“It’s huge,” Rebels defensive lineman Kam Franklin said. “We’re doing something that has never been done. This is going to be historically the first [CFP] game that any school in Mississippi has ever hosted. We’re excited, but this is a part of being a great dominant team.”
