Brent Venables helped convince Pete Golding to run Ole Miss defense
Published:
Pete Golding will continue to call the shots for the Ole Miss defense. Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables helped the Rebels’ new leading man officially make that call.
In an interview with ESPN, Golding revealed that his initial reluctance to take a head coaching job stemmed from the fact he wasn’t ready to give up playcalling. In his mind, he’d transition to a “CEO-type” head coach when he was tired of running the defensive room.
Well, when Lane Kiffin bolted Oxford for Baton Rouge and the opportunity to run the program he had already fallen in love with fell into Golding’s lap, he had a choice to make. Golding named Ole Miss assistant Bryan Brown as the team’s official defensive coordinator, but he told ESPN on Wednesday that a conversation with Venables emboldened him to hang on to play-calling duties.
“He’s just like, ‘Look, you got that job for a lot of reasons, but the primary reason is you’ve always done a really good job with the defense, and if you’re able to do that, you need to continue to do that,'” Pete Golding recalled to ESPN’s Heather Dinich. “I still want to be heavily involved and still call it and I enjoy doing that, so that kind of solidified if you’re going to do it, make sure I get really good people around me that can help in the management of things that allows me to watch enough tape to put our kids in a good spot.”
Venables got the head coaching gig at Oklahoma, in part, because he established himself as one of the best defensive minds in football during his time at Clemson. But Venables gave up the defensive reins when he took over the Sooners’ program.
Ahead of the 2025 season, though, after his defensive coordinator left for another job, Venables took back play-calling responsibilities.
“Because I’m good at it,” Venables said last spring. “And I’m confident in it.”
The move worked like gangbusters for the Sooners, who improved upon an 11th-place finish in 2024 to finish second nationally in adjusted defensive EPA per play in 2025.
Golding is hoping for a similar kind of success in 2026. If he can parlay last year’s smashing start into a full season’s worth of fortune, Ole Miss might head back to the College Football Playoff.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
