Pete Golding aces first test as head coach at Ole Miss
By David Wasson
Published:
A head football coach always remembers his first victory – usually with a commemorative game ball, lots of handshakes and postgame photographs and the knowledge that the long and winding road is just beginning.
Pete Golding earned his first victory as a head coach Saturday, and surely the game ball and handshakes and postgame photographs were all properly harvested. The difference between Golding and, well, just about everyone else ever was that his debut – and the stage it was on – was just way bigger.
A month removed from serving as Lane Kiffin’s scraggly, tobacco-lipped defensive coordinator at Ole Miss, Golding vaulted straight to the big time for win No. 1 in his blossoming career by leading the Rebels past Tulane 41-10 in the first round of the College Football Playoff.
The CFP victory, the first for Ole Miss in program history, came less than a month removed from when Kiffin managed to set the bridge he was standing upon ablaze before scurrying to the airport for a private jet to Baton Rouge – a staggering series of events that left Golding holding the proverbial bag in Oxford.
The drama was the middle act of the 3-act Lane Kiffin Circus – with the first act being Florida, LSU and Florida State all queuing up to woo the bombastic coach and the final act coming with Kiffin’s performative introductory news conference at Baton Rouge. Along the way, Golding was trying to hold together the Rebels locker room with everything he had while simultaneously using the fuel of Kiffin’s abandonment and figuring out the nuances of being a Power 5 college football coach headed to the College Football Playoff stage while the ink dried on his new contract.
Did we mention the hopes and dreams of the entire Ole Miss Nation was all rolled up in his deal, too? No pressure, right?
Golding managed to squeeze in a haircut in the days since Kiffin pulled the rug out from under himself and the Ole Miss program on Nov. 30, but the rough edges that make him Oxford’s most favorite good ol’ boy were still on full display at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. If anyone thought Golding was going to change who he is just because the network cameras were now suddenly all over him simply didn’t know Golding very well.
“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 yoga crack was a clear shot across the bow of the Good Ship Kiffin, but there were more subtle signs that this wasn’t Kiffin’s program anymore. What seemed like an omnipresent shade all season, powder blue was not a part of the Rebels’ ensemble Saturday against Tulane. There also wasn’t an adorable retriever fetching kicking tees, no snarky tweets or no hamming it up for every lens in sight.
Still, the enormity of Saturday couldn’t possibly have escaped Golding. Ole Miss had never squinted inside the CFP spotlight before now, and the fervor surrounding The Grove and beyond worked this deal up to the biggest sporting event in the state’s history.
That reality, combined with the Kiffin saga still simmering in Baton Rouge, could have easily swallowed up the Rebels whole. Instead, Golding kept his squad focused “on the mission, not the man” in part by retaining offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. for the CFP run even though Weis is headed to LSU with Kiffin once the postseason is complete.
That decision was made for the better of the team, which is where Golding’s heart has been from the start and is one of the main reasons he was tapped almost immediately upon Kiffin’s wheels-up departure. So what if Weis is going to be coaching at LSU in January… he was the guy running this offense from the jump, so it would make the most sense to maintain the continuity in preparation for Tulane and now for Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.
After Saturday’s game, with all the huzzahs and handshakes behind him, Golding was asked about how his team performed in the face of the unprecedented hoopla that surrounded them – about how the Rebels performed for their new coach taking his first steps underneath the big headset.
“To finally be the last voice, it kind of hit me some,” Golding said. “And then just more excited for the players, how they responded. Some of those hugs will get you a little bit, you know?
“They know where my heart is at this place, and I know what these kids mean to me.”
Someone get that man a commemorative game ball and a fresh pinch. Lord knows he earned it.
An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
