Pete Golding Never Once Considered Following Lane Kiffin From Ole Miss to LSU

When Lane Kiffin left the Ole Miss Rebels hanging high and dry for the LSU Tigers, the obvious assumption was that a mass exodus of players and coaches would follow him straight to Baton Rouge.

For the most part, that wasn't the case with the players. Sure, 21 players left the program, but of that group, just four landed with the Tigers - T.J. Dottery, Devin Harper, Princewill Umanmielen, and Winston Watkins.

On the coaching side, however, that was very much the case with 21 total members of Kiffin's staff electing to follow him to Baton Rouge. That list included his wide receiver, running back, tight end, and linebacker coaches, as well as his offensive coordinator and play caller, Charlie Weis Jr.

One major name it did not include, however, was his defensive coordinator, and now Ole Miss head coach, Pete Golding.

And according to Golding himself, during a recent interview with Chris Low of On3, his leaving Ole Miss in any capacity was never even an option

Pete Golding was never leaving Oxford

Ole Miss head coach Pete Golding stands on the field during warm-ups before the CFP Fiesta Bowl | Lauren Witte/Clarion Ledger / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

In fact, he never came to Ole Miss for Lane Kiffin in the first place.

“That’s not why I came here," Golding said in the interview. "This had been going on for two years, whether Lane was going to leave, even the Florida talk the year before. I was like, ‘Hey bro, I Iove you, but don’t get it twisted. I didn’t come here for you.’”

Sure, on paper, that might seem like the case. Golding was hired by Kiffin to replace co-defensive coordinators Chris Patridge and Maurice Crum Jr. after a down year for the Rebels defense. The two also had a previous connection with one another through Nick Saban, who both coached under at different times with Alabama.

But Golding never came to Oxford Kiffin. He came because of his love for the state of Mississippi, and the family roots and foundations that were already laid here.

“You get so locked in sometimes to a career, then you’re focused on the next step," Golding said back in 2023 when he was hired. "Then you’re married and you’ve got 3 kids; sometimes you lose the value of what you’re really about,” Golding said. “I enjoyed where I was at; this is strictly based on trying to be a better husband and father.”

Did Ole Miss being a top-tier program and a great opportunity to further his career help make that decision a lot easier?

Absolutely.

But he was also never going to leave the state to follow Lane Kiffin, or anybody else. He wants to stay exactly where he is right now.

In fact, Golding even told Ole Miss AD Keith Carter, per Low, that if the Rebels had elected to hire someone else, he might have just stayed in Oxford anyway.

And at the end of the day, that commitment and loyalty might have been exactly what tipped the scales in his favor for the job.

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