New Ole Miss defensive coordinator Pete Golding is 'as five-star as you can get'
Ole Miss football head coach Lane Kiffin did some overhauling of his coaching staff on the defensive side this offseason. The biggest change was bringing in Pete Golding as the Rebels new defensive coordinator.
Golding was hired last month, replacing co-defensive coordinators Chris Partridge and Maurice Crum. Partridge had been a part of Kiffin’s staff since coming to Ole Miss in 2019. Crum was hired last March after the departure of DJ Durkin to Texas A&M.
Now, Golding is the lone man in charge of the Ole Miss defense heading into 2023 after spending the last five years at Alabama.
During his National Signing Day press conference on Wednesday, Kiffin provided further insight into bringing Golding to Ole Miss.
“It’s just really awesome. When we talk about signing day we talk about landing five stars, and he’s about as five star as you can get,” Kiffin said. “This also has nothing to do with beating out Alabama either, he’s just a great coach and everyone that’s worked with him has always said from the beginning that he was a brilliant, up-and-coming guy. (Alabama) Coach (Nick) Saban even talked about him as one of the best interviews he’s ever seen in the first interview when he had interviewed him”
In the spirit of National Signing Day Kiffin used a recruitment approach to get Golding to take the job at Ole Miss.
Relationships are key when recruiting a prospect as coaches work to get them to commit to their school. Sometimes that same process works when hiring new coaches.
Golding has family ties to Oxford that Kiffin noted was sort of an ace up Ole Miss’ sleeve when talking with the former Alabama defensive coordinator.
As big of a coup as it may seem to many, Kiffin is focusing on the pros of having Golding on his staff in a recruiting capacity as much as a coaching capacity.
“It’s just a very unusual situation where someone at the very top of their game gets to come here as a coordinator,” Kiffin said. “There were some family things that helped us there with his wife’s family being from here, so that was great. It was kind of like with recruiting how sometimes you just get the little advantages. I’m really excited for them to come and for he and his family to be here and to really help us not just on defense schematically, but he’s been a phenomenal recruiter too that we’ve had to go against in the past.”
