Pete Golding has come a long way from Hammond.
Yet he won’t be far from there when he takes center stage to lead No. 6-seeded Ole Miss against No. 3-seeded Georgia in a College Football Playoff quarterfinal in the Allstate Sugar Bowl at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Caesars Superdome.
It’s a mere 60 miles from Southeastern Louisiana University, where the Hammond native and Hammond High School alumnus cut his teeth as a Division I college assistant coach. But Golding has entered a whole different world as he coaches his second game as a head coach in what is arguably the biggest football game in the Rebels’ storied history.
Golding won another really important game just 20 days after he was promoted from defensive coordinator in the wake of head coach Lane Kiffin leaving Oxford to become head coach at LSU. Ole Miss (12-1) routed Tulane 41-10 on Dec. 20 to reach this game against the 12-1 Bulldogs.
It was business as usual under Golding after a tumultuous end to November in which the Rebels beat rival Mississippi State, then lost Kiffin to LSU.
The Ole Miss braintrust quickly turned to Golding, 41, not just to guide this team through the CFP but also to continue guiding a program that had four consecutive non-winning seasons before Kiffin began his highly successful six-year run.
Ron Roberts, for whom Golding played and under whom Golding was a graduate assistant and later defensive coordinator at Division II Delta State, hired Golding as the Southeastern defensive coordinator (2012-13).
“Coach Roberts had a huge impact on me as a player and more importantly as a man and as a coach,” Golding said. “That’s a big piece of who I am.”
In 2013, Golding helped the Lions win their first conference title since 1961. He went on to coach on the FBS level at Southern Miss, Texas-San Antonio and Alabama (where in five seasons he helped head coach Nick Saban win three SEC championships and a national championship in 2022) before Kiffin came calling.
Kiffin, whose first three Ole Miss teams finished 5-5, 10-3 and 8-5, needed to upgrade his defense in order to get the Rebels to where they are today. He lured Golding away from Saban, who also was a former boss of Kiffin’s.
Since Golding’s hiring, Ole Miss has gone 11-2, 10-3 and 12-1.
Four of Kiffin’s offensive assistants will be with Kiffin at LSU, but not on a full-time basis until Ole Miss’ season is done.
Finishing one job while beginning another can be a tricky proposition, but Golding’s players praise his ability to communicate his defensive demands in simple terms, and he put that skill to work with the Ole Miss/LSU coaches on his staff.
“We have coaches that are working two different jobs like a lot of teams do right now,” Golding said. “When it’s not game week, they work in the role in their other job, and when it’s game week, they’re fully vested in where they’re at.”
When announcing Golding’s promotion, Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter said the coach has “a deep understanding of our culture, values and what it means to be part of the Ole Miss family,” adding that Golding is “one of us.”
The Ole Miss family united around Golding leading up to the game against Tulane. Archie Manning spoke to the team at practice the day before the game, and Eli Manning embraced Golding on the field prior to it.
Shortly after Golding’s promotion was announced, he canceled the news conference to introduce him as head coach because he didn’t want to draw attention away from the players earning the CFP berth.
Golding, who started playing at Delta State as a walk-on and emerged as a four-year starter at safety, used the same approach that worked for him as a player in his ascension from Division II coaching to a first-time head coach trying to win a national title.
“Regardless of whether I was a walk-on or not,” Golding said, “my mentality was, go outwork everyone else regardless of the position they put me at, regardless of how I got there, who’s on full scholarship. It doesn’t matter.
“Everybody wants to understand how do you get to where you want to go? You’ve got to outwork everybody else. You’re not always going to be the most talented guy or be seen as the most talented guy. You’ve got to be willing to do things that they’re not, and when you have talent and do those things then you have a lot of success.”
