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New Ole Miss coach Pete Golding knew the question was coming. He’s heard it every Tuesday and Thursday lately as he travels the country with some of his players, discussing the Rebels and the upcoming season.
What’s your relationship with Lane Kiffin like? Inevitable, really.
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Golding was well prepared with his answer. He’s had time to think about Kiffin’s departure for the LSU job and how it all unfolded last season in the middle of the team’s College Football Playoff run. His answer might surprise you.
“I tell a lot of these people, and I probably shouldn’t say this, but I don’t care,” Golding told a room full of reporters at SEC Media Days in Tampa. “I told an Ole Miss group the other day, in 2021, OK, ‘if you said in 2021 you could look in 2025 and you’re about to be 11-1 and go to the playoff, would you take it if your coach was leaving?’ They’re like, ‘Hell yeah.’ You would. Everybody won from it. It’s OK.”
Pete Golding, obviously, benefited from Kiffin’s departure. He became the Ole Miss head coach, a job he said he wasn’t looking for but very much appreciates.
As for Kiffin, Golding’s stance is essentially that perhaps the circumstances just weren’t quite right for him. He still did a great job for the Rebels. The two things can co-exist.
“He did a great job. Every place isn’t for everybody,” Golding said. “That’s coaches, that’s players. That’s your job, that’s everything. And that’s OK.”
For his part, Pete Golding knows what he thinks Kiffin should have done. Or at least what he would have preferred Kiffin to do.
“Throughout the process, I’ll be the first one to tell you, I told him I was thinking he was dumb if he was to leave,” Golding said. “I was wanting him to say, that was a selfish decision because I loved being the DC where I was at. But he decided it was better for him and his family, and that’s for him to decide.
“So I have no ill will towards him at all. Wish him the best of luck. We play him like every other SEC team, we’re going to both show up and spot the ball and play. I talk to him on a regular basis but no ill will at all and really appreciative of how he treated me and my family, and then this created an unbelievable opportunity for me on top that I really wasn’t looking for but so appreciative to have.”
Is it tricky for Pete Golding now, competing against LSU as a major opponent in the same league? After all, he pointed out he didn’t know Kiffin when he was hired by the Rebels, but their relationship grew over his tenure there.
Will that make the fall — particularly the meeting between the two — extra tense? Sure sounds like business as usual for the new Rebels coach.
“Our relationship really grew in those three and a half years,” Golding said. “And he did a lot for me, and I was very, very appreciative of how he treated me and my family and learned a lot from him. I have no ill will towards coach Kiffin. He texts me on a regular basis and there are certain things that we’ll talk about and there’s certain things that we don’t talk about.
“He’s very competitive, just like I’m very competitive. So obviously a lot of this went a different direction when now he had a new job with new responsibilities and he’s going to be super competitive to be the best that he can at that job, right? Which is his job. So I can separate the two. I know some people can’t.”
Circle the calendars. Ole Miss will host LSU on Sept. 19, in Week 3 of the 2026 college football season. Fireworks seem certain, even if Pete Golding and Lane Kiffin remain on good terms.
