The weeks following Lane Kiffin bailing on Ole Miss in the middle of a CFP run were perhaps some of the most chaotic weeks the Rebel Nation had every witnessed.
Everyone had their reservations about Golding's coaching abilities at first, and a massive Playoff potential easily overpowered all those. Not paying attention to even the slightest bit of noise, Golding kept his cool, put on his hat, and just took it one game at a time.
Pete Golding on how he managed the frenzy in initial weeks
Speaking of the noise, Golding recently mentioned how he didn't even get time to reflect back on his own thoughts amid the frenzy.
"I wouldn’t call it a trial run, but having the experience of building into a game and all that, you never really got to sit back and think about it because of the timing," Golding said on Paul Finebaum's Show.
It took a literal natural disaster to grind the Ole Miss HC to a halt and give him a moment of clarity.
"It was signing day, then Tulane, then Georgia, then the Fiesta Bowl, then the portal. When we had that ice storm, it gave me about two weeks to sit back and reevaluate everything."
The entire Oxford still remebers how the Manning Center felt like a war room under siege, with the lights burning until 3:00 AM as coaches pulled double shifts to keep a playoff-bound roster from evaporating.
When that ice storm finally hit, it didn't just freeze the roads—it acted as a literal circuit breaker for a program that had been redlining for sixty straight days.
Rebel fans will likely remember that November as the most volatile period the program has ever seen, and Golding's reflection took them right back.
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