Lane Kiffin credits Pete Golding for off-field mentorship of players

Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin landed an excellent hire this offseason within the SEC, adding former Alabama defensive coordinator Pete Golding to his staff in the same role.

Golding has been a key part of Alabama’s defensive success the last five seasons as the Crimson Tide play caller. But Kiffin revealed at SEC Media Days that even off the field Golding has already made a positive impact on his defensive players during his short time in Oxford.

“Yeah, Pete does a great job off the field. He’s always got kids in his office talking to them, helping them out,” Kiffin said. “Really smart guy that does dig into the players because he’d ask about a player, he already knows their whole background and life situation and stuff so he does a great job of that.”

Golding getting Ole Miss’ defense on the same page and up to speed will be key this offseason, as the team has brought in a slew of new players from the transfer portal and new coaches from elsewhere. Only four coaches from Kiffin’s staff return from a season ago and 26 players left the transfer portal, as some fresh faces on the team and on the staff will have to step up and contribute this year.

Ole Miss’ defense gave up just 17.2 points per game during the team’s impressive 7-0 start to the season last year. But their disappointing 1-5 finish to the season was highlighted by the Rebels inability to keep teams out of the end zone, giving up 35.1 points per game in their last six matchups.

Golding is hoping to channel more of Ole Miss’ first half of the season defense this year versus how they looked to end the year, as he’ll attempt to aid Kiffin in bouncing back from a disappointing end to the season following a hot start.

Pete Golding was Kiffin’s real top recruit

Kiffin spoke more on Golding with the ‘SEC Now’ crew at media days, further elaborating on his hiring process and what he’ll bring to a defense that struggled particularly at the end of last season giving up 34.5 points per game in the final four games (all losses).

“Yeah that was like the number one coaches portal guy, we have the player portal, we got him to go in the portal,” Kiffin joked. “That was really neat to have a chance to get Pete, he’s got a background in the SEC, in the area of recruiting also besides just being a brilliant mind in the game. It’s been awesome to work with him already, knew a lot of people that have worked with him and talked so well about him so brining him in is really big. And we have a really big challenge of a new system and a lot of new players on that side of the ball trying to fix the issues we had down the stretch