About three months after Lane Kiffin bailed on Ole Miss, there is all but a vestigial anxiety left in Oxford. He is gone, and the program is thriving without him, thanks to how swiftly Pete Golding handled the reins in the Grove.
Were it not for him, the after effects would still be running strong in Ole Miss football.
In just three months, Golding not only crafted an entire staff of his own, some of it while playing in the College Football Playoff, fought to get their QB his additional year of eligibility, all while building a No. 2 transfer portal class amid a mass exodus of players who were supposed to return.
And that list is not even touching upon him leading the Rebels to a historic CFP run till the semifinals — where they lost by just a failed Hail Mary — only because he did it with Kiffin's staffer, Charlie Weis Jr.
Pete Golding a B- or a solid A hire?
Despite the lengthy list, the Athletic ranked Golding's hire as a B- for Ole Miss. The reason? He’s never been the one with the headset on gamedays.
"AD Keith Carter made the best possible short-term move in promoting Golding, who emerged from the Kiffin soap opera to lead the Rebels to the CFP semifinals. But those two games with Kiffin’s holdover staff don’t tell us much as to how well the 41-year-old will run his own program going forward," The Athletic's Stewart Mandel writes.
He might not have been in the Big Chair before, but he did lead a defense that was the best rush defense in Oxford since 1966, which led the nation in sacks (52) and tackles for loss (120) in 2024.
Plus, he pulled a fast one over a blueblood like Georgia with the same OC and the exact roster that Kiffin had when he lost to them in a much lower-stakes regular-season matchup.
Most importantly, Golding took just months to build a system of his own, something that most head coaches takes years to nail.
Sure, there is some anticipation for the ball to drop, but the collective confidence in Oxford suggests Golding has it under his belt.