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Lane Kiffin ribs Pete Golding after defense surrendered Mercer TD on first play

PeterWarrenPhoto2by:Peter Warren•09/03/23•

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NCAA Football: Mercer at Mississippi
(Petre Thomas-USA TODAY Sports)

The tenure of Ole Miss defensive coordinator Pete Golding didn’t get off to the start head coach Lane Kiffin and the Rebels fans would have hoped for Saturday. On the first play of the game for Mercer, Carter Peevy ran 75 yards for a touchdown to tie the score at 7.

That ended up being the only score of the game for the Bears as Ole Miss scored 66 consecutive points after that to win 73-7.

Kiffin had plenty of jokes for his new defensive coordinator after the play, even sending out a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, poking fun at Golding.

“Looks like @MercerFootball first play for 75 against you @CoachGolding (laughing emoji) ‘Pete Wth we payed alot of money to get you for this??’ Headset yesterday ‘Coach don’t worry they won’t score another point today’ facts,” Kiffin posted.

While it is not his most grammatically-correct post, Kiffin says that Golding told him Mercer wouldn’t score again during the game and he was right.

Kiffin also told the story in his post-game press conference.

“I said on the headset, ‘paid a lot of money, Pete, for you, and that’s not exactly what we’re expecting.’ That wasn’t a real good start,” Kiffin said. “Maybe my joke he responded to.”

The Bears would finish the game with only 235 yards of offense compared to 667 for the Rebels. Outside of the rushing touchdown, Mercer would only net 18 more rushing yards throughout the game.

Peavy was also sacked four times during the game as Peavy finished the game with just 49 rushing yards despite having a 75-yard touchdown. He also threw for 138 yards with an interception.

The big question heading into the game, however, wasn’t about Golding and the defense. They will face bigger challenges as the season progresses that will be better benchmarks for their success.

It was the state of the quarterback battle and who would start between Jaxson Dart over Spencer Sanders. Dart earned the start, which was expected, but both players played.

Kiffin talked with the media about both players and said the competition has not concluded.

“I told you guys, I thought both guys had a great camp,” Kiffin said. “They played really well in the scrimmages, the mock game. We felt really good about both guys being able to win for us. I thought both guys played extremely well today and made a lot of plays. I think Jaxson started 11-for-11, Spencer threw in two touchdowns.

“At the end of the day, we had to make a decision, who went first? And Jaxson did and did a really good job. Now, we’ll go back and go to work this week. … I know there’s people out there that say people need to be named starters for them to play well. Well, he wasn’t named the starter, went 11-for-11. So I don’t think that theory works very much.”