Grading Pete Golding As Ole Miss Head Coach: Rebels Take Giant Risk

Lane Kiffin has messily exited shape left and Mississippi wasted nary clip successful promoting from wrong to hand nan reins complete to Pete Golding for nan upcoming College Football Playoff tally and beyond.

The move is 1 for continuity successful Oxford, Miss., but besides a realization that nan coaching carousel has mostly passed nan Rebels by. Top options for illustration Jon Sumrall (Tulane to Florida) and Alex Golesh (South Florida to Auburn) were disconnected nan committee by nan clip they really sewage an reply from Kiffin. The schoolhouse was caught betwixt a stone and a difficult spot fixed that they will beryllium successful nan playoff adjacent month.  

So they person made a move for continuity and keeping nan existent squad together by turning things complete to nan team’s protect coordinator for his first caput coaching job. It’s understandable fixed nan unit of nan infinitesimal but a monolithic consequence astatine nan aforesaid clip for nan programme agelong word successful not afloat exploring nan marketplace to make judge it has nan correct feline successful charge.

Maybe it each useful retired this postseason and moving forward, but it’s simply difficult to spot Ole Miss pursuing up nan astir successful agelong successful schoolhouse history by reaching those aforesaid highs nether Golding. This is nan SEC aft all, wherever nan margins are bladed and nan expertise to prolong a winning civilization conscionable sewage a batch harder aft this weekend.

You person to wonderment if there’s a spot of a parallel to what Ole Miss is doing and what their bitter rivals Mississippi State did conscionable a fewer years ago. After Mike Leach’s abrupt decease successful 2022, nan Bulldogs elevated protect coordinator Zach Arnett to return nan occupation afloat time, hoping to support an awesome tally going by picking personification who knew nan programme well, had awesome connections to nan players and understood nan job’s limitations amended than most. 

It turned retired to beryllium a flop of a determination arsenic Arnett lasted conscionable 1 season, went 5–6 wide and appeared overwhelmed astatine times. Recruiting trailed off, wins ne'er materialized and a difficult reset of nan full cognition followed that led to nan Bulldogs to prosecute Jeff Lebby. 

Golding knows Ole Miss good and is simply a seasoned successful nan SEC, but it’s not foolish to deliberation that nan schoolhouse management is trying to thread nan needle betwixt nan short word and nan agelong word by promoting Golding—knowing they could beryllium fresh to propulsion nan plug again if things don’t spell well. That seems for illustration wherever we’re headed pinch each coaching prosecute nowadays, but it whitethorn beryllium a peculiarly apt explanation successful swiftly promoting nan team’s existent protect coordinator who immoderate successful their convention don’t mind seeing get nan occupation 1 bit.

What it intends for Pete Golding

It’s evidently a terrific point to get nan full-time gig without overmuch ambiguity complete nan coming weeks for Golding. He gets to go an SEC caput coach astatine a spot he really enjoys moving at. That’s difficult to hit for nan seasoned coach who went to schoolhouse successful nan state, particularly since he didn’t look for illustration a campaigner to move pinch Kiffin to LSU agelong term. 

The rumor Golding faces is that he is simply not his aged boss. He’ll beryllium compared to Kiffin successful each respect, and it judge doesn’t thief that nan erstwhile is down nan roadworthy successful Baton Rouge pinch what should beryllium easier entree to a talented roster. Golding will person to support things rolling successful a convention which someway feels moreover much competitory than it was conscionable a fewer years ago.

That’s a difficult barroom to clear, overmuch little for a first-time caput coach who will beryllium having a batch thrown astatine him.

If you were to inquire opposing SEC coaches and instrumentality bases if they were excited that Ole Miss simply promoted Golding alternatively of going retired to onshore a proven caput coach, they would beryllium complete nan moon. Maybe he unlocks nan spot and keeps things rolling extracurricular nan Grove, but history and communal consciousness says this is taking a large chance connected a coordinator who didn’t peculiarly separate his units connected nan section either. 

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